THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 
Kate  Gordon  Moore 


The  Reasonableness  of  Faith 


The  Reasonableness 
of  Faith 

and  Other  Addresses 

By 
W.  S.  RAINSFORD,  D.  D, 


NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE   &  CO. 

190Z 


Copyright,  igo2,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,  PaGE  &   Co, 

Published  May,  1902 


.5937 


CONTENTS 

The  Reasonableness  of  Faith 

Courage 

There  Wrestled  a  Man 

The  Gospel  of  Genesis 

Harvard  Baccalaureate 

Love  Not  the  World     . 

The  Eyes  of  the  Heart 

The  Rest  Day 

Phillips  Brooks 

Our  Duty  to  Civilization 

Leanness  of  Soul  . 

Sacrifice  to  Their  Net 

Claims  and  Duties  of  Our  Time 

Creation  and  the  Fall 

Whosoever    Shall    Seek   to    Save 

Life  Shall  Lose  It 
God's  Lmage  in  Man 
Christ  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize 
What  Manner  of  Man  is  This? 


Uii 


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THE  REASONABLENESS  OF  FAITH 


"If  thou  canst  do  anything,  have  compassion  on 
us  and  help  us. 

"Jesus  said  unto  him,  if  thou  canst  believe,  all 
things  are  possible  to  him  that  belie veth. " 

Mark  ix. :  22-23 


Here  is  the  old,  old  subject — Christ's 
changeless  demand  for  faith.  Is  it  a 
reasonable  demand?  Can  ordinary  men 
comply  with  it  ? 

Of  all  questions  the  thoughtful  man  is 
called  on  to  face,  there  can,  I  think,  be  none 
more  important  than  this.  There  are  those 
— not  a  few — who  tell  us  faith  is  waning. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  at  least 
as  competent  to  form  a  judgment  who 
confidently  assert  that  our  age  is  pre-emi- 
nently one  of  faith.  Goethe  says  the  ages 
of  belief  are  the  only  fruitful  ages,  and 
history  backs  his  opinion.  If,  then,  faith 
is  slowly  waning  from  the  earth,  and  the 
most  progressive  peoples  are  learning  to 
live  without  it,  the  fact  is  one  of  gravest 
I 


2      The  Reasonableness     of     Faith 

significance.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
only  the  antiquated  and  infirm  forms  of 
faith  (her  cast-off  garments)  that  are  passing, 
cast  aside  as  things  no  longer  usable,  while 
the  real  body  and  life  of  faith  are  quick  and 
vital — then  the  time  is  ripe  for  new  and 
simpler  definitions  of  what  our  honoured 
forbears  called  ' '  saving  faith. ' ' 

With  this  last  view  I  am  very  heartily 
in  accord,  and  to-day,  when  you  have  called 
me,  gentlemen  of  Columbia  University,  to 
the  very  high  honour  of  addressing  you,  I 
know  of  no  more  timely  subject  for  which 
to  claim  your  indulgent  attention. 

I  wish  to  try  and  point  out  that  faith  as 
demanded  by  Jesus  Christ  and  His  apostles 
never  was  meant  to  be  adhesion  to  any 
credal  statement,  but  a  vital  obedience  to, 
and  trust  in,  a  living  man.  Who  in  His 
Person  and  teaching  revealed  two  things 
as  they  never  had  been  revealed  before — 
the  nature  of  man  and  the  nature  of  God. 
My  subject,  then,  I  shall  call  the  reason- 
ableness OF  FAITH. 

First  of  all,  I  ask  you  to  consider  that  Jesus 
wins  the  response  of  faith  that  He  desires 
from   all   sorts   of   people.     The   most   un- 


The   Reasonableness   of   Faith      3 

promising  win  their  way  to  Him  and  gain 
His  approval.  He  expects  to  find  good  in 
men,  to  find  something  worth  helping  and 
saving  in  them,  and  to  find  this  worthiness 
in  the  most  unlikely  places. 

In  order  tec  imderstand  what  Jesus  meant 
and  what  He  taught  about  faith,  we  must 
refuse  to  separate  His  acts  and  His  words. 
We  must  put  acts  and  words  together,  and 
then  what  He  does  will  illustrate  what  He 
says.  Here,  I  venture  to  think,  Christian 
men  have  very  often  failed,  and  are  failing 
to-day. 

We  take  a  word  of  His — this  word  faith, 
belief;  we  find  that  to  those  who  have 
it  and  exercise  it  He  constantly  makes 
such  promises  as  these:  "All  things  are 
possible  to  him  that  believeth";  "He  that 
believeth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting 
life";  "He  that  believeth  on  Me,  though  he 
were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live."  No  words 
seem  too  strong  when  He  seeks  to  express 
His  fear  for  those  who  have  it  and  exercise  it 
not:  "He  that  believeth  not  shall  not  see 
life,  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  him," 
and  a  multitude  of  similar  passages.  We 
remember   these    passages,    but   we   forget 


4      The    Reasonableness    op   Faith 

the  circumstances  in  which  they  were  spoken. 
Did  we  remember  them,  the  circumstances 
would  illuminate  and  make  their  meaning 
plain.  These,  however,  we  ignore,  and  the 
imfortunate  result  arises  that,  before  we 
are  aware  of  it,  faith  seems  to  become  an 
unreal,  impossible  thing,  a  demand  with 
which  we  cannot  comply,  a  possession  which 
but  few  have.  Thus  it  fades,  and  the 
Christianity  of  which  it  is  the  root  and 
spirit  fades  too. 

Notice,  then,  that  from  all  sorts  of  people — 
the  learned  and  the  unlearned,  the  stranger 
of  a  day  and  the  life-long  friend,  the  dis- 
ciple who  clings  to  Him  and  the  casual 
visitor  who  comes  to  Him  only  for  some  one 
thing,  and,  having  got  it,  goes  away — from 
all  alike  Jesus  demands  faith  and  belief. 
He  will  have  no  dealings  with  men  with- 
out it. 

In  word  or  act  of  Jesus  we  can  find  no 
precedent  for  the  state  of  things  which  we 
have  brought  about  to-day.  We  have  made 
faith  seem  difficult;  so  difficult  that  multi- 
tudes of  our  very  best  men  and  women 
turn  from  the  Church,  because  in  their 
souls  they  believe  it  is  impossible  for  them 


The   Reasonableness   of   Faith      5 

to  yield  to  the  demand  which  the  Church 
makes  on  them  for  faith.  They  are  just 
as  good  as  the  Church  people  from  whose 
company  they  turn,  as  kind  to  their 
children,  as  faithful  in  their  loves  and 
friendships,  as  scrupulously  honest  in  their 
lives,  as  fervent  in  their  patrotism,  as  ready 
to  serve  and  suffer  for  their  fellowmen. 
Their  aims  are  the  aims  of  all  good  men 
and  women,  and  yet  they  are  turning  away 
sadly  or  indifferently  from  the  Church  and 
from  Christ.  And  why  are  they  doing  it  ? 
Because  we  have  made  His  claims  on 
them  appear  to  be  claims  with  which  they 
cannot  in  their  conscience  feel  it  is  right 
for  them  to  comply. 

This  is  nothing  less  than  a  perverting 
of  the  known  character  of  Jesus,  an  unlaw- 
ful reversal  of  His  method,  an  unfaithful 
presentation  of  His  message.  So  far  as  we 
have  achieved  this  result  we  have  not  been 
faithful  witnesses  to  God  for  our  own  time 
and  generation.  I  claim  not  only  a  word 
or  a  text  here  and  there  in  the  inspired 
records,  but  the  whole  life-long  conduct 
of  Jesus  in  proof  of  the  truth  of  what  I  have 
said — that    when    He   demanded   faith  and 


6      The    Reasonableness    of   Faith 

belief  from  men,  He  demanded  something 
which  He  thought  the  every-day  man  was 
able  to  give. 

Let  us  notice,  then,  that  our  Lord  came 
not  to  create  barriers  between  God  and  men, 
to  thrust  man  farther  from  God,  to  call  the 
few  to  their  Father.  His  yoke  was  easy, 
His  burden  was  light,  the  door  of  His  feast 
stood  wide  open,  the  wanderers  in  way- 
sides and  hedges  were  welcome  within. 
When  He  sowed  the  seed  of  the  kingdom, 
the  rocky  road,  the  choking  thorn,  the 
barren  hillside  as  well  as  the  fruitful  earth 
liberally  received  the  golden  grain.  He 
sought  no  rare  possession,  like  genius,  in 
man.  No  !  He  fastened  on  some  common 
gift,  the  most  universal,  when  He  appealed 
to  faith  and  belief.  This  was  Jesus'  fixed 
conviction.  Every  little  child,  He  said, 
had  faith  naturally  within,  and  could  sub- 
stantially exercise  it.  In  Christ's  view  to 
demand  faith  is  to  make  no  unfairly  diffi- 
cult demand. 

Nor  can  belief  be  confused  with  credulity. 
This  Jesus  rebukes  again  and  again.  Cre- 
dulity turns  the  soul  into  an  ash-heap  on 
which  are  cast  together  all  sorts  of  things 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith       7 

good  and  bad,  and  all  alike  are  wasted. 
Credulity  is  not  clear-eyed  but  blear-eyed. 
Credulity  abases  judgment.  Credulity  is 
a  traveller  without  a  guide,  or  one  with  a 
hundred  guides  who  is  trying  to  follow 
them  all  by  turn.  He  blunders  round  in 
a  circle,  makes  no  progress,  and  wins  no 
goal  either  of  character  or  attainment. 

Nor  can  faith,  as  Jesus  demands  it,  be 
the  development  of  ourselves  at  the  cost 
of  some  one  part  of  ourselves  (though  this 
fallacy  has  been  taught  again  and  again, 
and  is  believed  sometimes  in  the  present), 
at  the  cost  of  that  part  of  us  by  which  we 
know  and  judge  of  all  other  things — our 
reason.  Faith  cannot  be  created,  called 
out,  developed,  at  the  cost  of  reason;  for 
to  play  off  our  faith  against  our  reason  is 
to  raise  a  civil  war  in  man,  destructive, 
fratricidal  and  unnatural. 

I  would  like  in  passing  to  recal  what 
Lord  Bacon  says  about  this:  "It  were 
better,"  he  says,  "to  have  no  opinion  at 
all  of  God  than  such  an  opinion  as  is  un- 
worthy of  Him;  for  the  one  is  unbelief,  the 
other  contumely."  He  then  goes  on  to 
illustrate:    "Plutarch   said   well,    'I   would 


8      The    Reasonableness    of   Faith 

rather  a  great  deal  men  said  there  was  no 
such  man  as  Plutarch  at  all,  than  that  they 
should  say  there  was  one  Plutarch  who 
would  eat  his  own  children  as  soon  as  bom. ' " 
For  this  was  what  the  priests  of  Saturn 
taught,  that  Saturn  did. 

In  the  light,  then,  of  the  plain  practice 
of  Jesus  as  told  to  us  in  the  Evangelists,  I 
think  it  is  evident  that  there  were  three 
things  faith  was  not:  not  difficult  or  rare, 
not  credulous,  and  in  no  way  opposed  to 
reason. 

Now  see  how  this  wonderful  story  of  the 
transfigured  Christ  coming  down  from  the 
mountain  to  relieve  His  sorely  confused 
and  beset  disciples,  and  help  the  father  in 
his  misery,  and  the  son  in  his  epilepsy, 
illustrates  what  Jesus  would  have  us  believe 
that  faith  is.  Notice  first  that  here  Christ 
confronts  all  that  is  most  hopeless  in  life. 
He  is  face  to  face  with  life's  tragedy ;  for  here 
we  see  a  father's  misery,  a  son's  insanity,  a 
disciple's  stupidity,  while  round  the  spec- 
tacle gathers  the  heedless,  gaping  crowd. 

A  father  is  crying  for  help,  such  help  as 
love  needs  for  its  loved  ones.  The  cry  is 
the  cry  of  need,  of  need  for  another,   for 


The   Reasonableness    of   Faith      9 

another's  pain.  Most  of  us  have  felt  it — pain 
so  much  deeper,  sharper,  more  unbearably 
bitter,  than  any  pain  of  our  own.  It  is  the 
cry  of  him  who  has  tried  all  known  methods, 
tested  all  panaceas,  and  won  no  relief.  His 
long  course  of  disappointment  has  robbed 
him  of  all  faith.  Expectation  even  is 
almost  dead.  Hear  him  speak  for  himself. 
"If  thou  canst  do  anything,  have  pity  upon 
us  and  help  us."  But  this  is  not  the  only 
misery  that  confronts  the  Lord.  Here  is  a 
son's  insanity,  the  very  quintessence  of 
earthly  failure.  How  weary  we  sometimes 
grow  of  failure,  weary  of  bearing  the  burden 
of  failure  which  is  the  result  of  our  own 
miscalculation  or  sin !  But  harder  still  is  it 
to  confront  hopefully  that  heavy  burden 
of  failure  which  seems  to  weigh  on  the  world 
from  no  immediate  fault  of  its  own — failure 
the  result  of  some  hidden  deed,  some  for- 
gotten sin  of  long  ago,  an  hereditary  taint 
handed  down,  bringing  forth  at  last  its 
bitter  Dead  Sea  fruit. 

But  another  failure  confronts  Jesus  here, 
a  failure  more  near  and  intimate.  His 
chosen  disciples,  whose  great  task  lies  be- 
fore them  as  yet   unattempted,   they  who 


10    The    Reasonableness    of   Faith 

must  minister  to  pain,  they  who,  inspired 
by  Him,  must  go  forth  to  heal  earth's  failures, 
seeking  to  uplift  and  inspire  those  multitudes 
of  men  whom  it  is  so  hard  permanently  to 
touch;  these  men  have  failed  in  their  efforts 
to  help  the  boy.  What  promise  is  this  for 
the  work  before  them?  For  these  men 
must  be  not  only  soldiers,  sharing  the 
dangers  of  the  field,  but  while  they  fight  they 
must  bring  succour.  They  must  be  in- 
vincible veterans  fighting  with  one  hand, 
and  bearing  the  wounded  to  shelter  with  the 
other.  They  must  learn  to  tread  out  evil, 
learn  to  smite  and  hate  it,  to  steady  the 
poor  soul  caught  in  its  toil,  and,  freeing 
his  feet  from  the  entangling  snare,  set  him 
on  the  path  of  life  again. 

So  we  behold  our  Lord  confronted  by 
the  human  need  of  the  father's  misery,  the 
son's  insanity,  and  the  sad  incapacity  of 
earthly  ministry.  What  does  Christ  do? 
It  is  all-important  that  we  should  know. 

Something  in  all  these  men.  He  says,  is 
put  there  by  God,  a  quality  which  lies 
within  them,  buried  and  almost  lost,  per- 
haps, but  still  resident,  responsive  to  meet 
just    such    occasions    as    these.     The   most 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     ii 

real  of  all  human  need  carries,  Christ  teaches 
us,  the  cure  for  its  want  in  its  own  bosom. 
Belief  lies  almost  dead  there  among  those 
men  because  unused  for  so  long.  But 
father  and  disciple  alike,  even  in  the  face 
of  such  difficulties,  can  exercise  a  trust  so 
vital,  so  warm,  so  strong,  that  not  only  can 
they  stand  up  in  it  and  conquer  for  them- 
selves, but  the  influence  of  their  own  faith 
can  work  the  deliverance  from  what  seems 
to  be  a  hopeless  failure,  and  break  the 
ties  that  have  bound  this  boy  in  darkness 
from  his  cradle. 

And  what  is  this  belief  which  Jesus  de- 
mands and  calls  into  exercise,  which  He 
challenges,  and  which  immediately  comes 
forth  in  obedience  to  His  challenge?  He 
does  not  enter  into  disquisition  or  definition 
of  it.  He  does  not  even  say,  "  Believe  in 
Me."  It  is  just  belief  in  God,  belief  that 
He  is  good,  not  bad ;  that  He  is  near,  not  far ; 
that  He  is  loving,  not  indifferent ;  that  He  is 
all-powerful,  not  powerless;  belief  that  He 
is  the  sort  of  God,  in  short,  that  the  dis- 
tracted father,  the  imbecile  son  and  the 
despairing  disciple  really  want,  if  they  will 
but  have  it  so. 


12     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Jesus  tells  them  that  they  do  believe  in 
God,  that  they  have  always  believed  in 
God,  that  it  is  human  instinct  to  have  faith 
in  God.  "Arise  and  exercise  what  is  your 
own,  and  all  things  are  possible  to  him  that 
believeth. "  To  convince  them  of  the  truth 
of  the  great  power,  of  the  possibilities  of  the 
exercise  of  this  power  within  them,  Jesus  will 
give  them  a  display  of  divine  power.  He 
cannot  repeat  such  displays  forever:  by 
doing  so  He  would  make  them  meaning- 
less. He  will  not  break  in  on  His  Father's 
laws — which  are  the  best  laws  possible  for 
men — but  He  will  more  fully  reveal  those 
laws;  and,  therefore,  He  works  what  people 
call  a  miracle.  That  does  not  mean  that 
He  will  do  a  supernatural  deed — there  can 
be  no  such  thing  as  a  supernatural  deed — 
but  He  will  more  fully  explain  the  natural. 
He  will  not  alter  by  one  degree  any  divine 
order,  but  He  will  give  in  His  own  person 
an  illustration  of  the  beauty  of  the  order. 
He  will  show  that  it  is  God's  will  that  misery, 
insanity,  stupidity,  should  cease  to  be,  and 
that  when  men  are  at  one  with  God  as  He  is, 
these  old  oppressions  of  earth  are  powerless 
to   resist   their   faithful,    God-trusting   will. 


The   Reasonableness    of   Faith     13 

To  them,  then,  is  entrusted  a  power  before 
which  the  long  entrenched  evils  of  earth 
shrivel  up  and  disappear. 

We  know  that  as  long  as  this  Jesus  stood 
before  men,  living  the  life  that  inspired 
them,  doing  the  deeds  that  thrilled  them, 
using  the  old  word  faith,  belief,  and  breath- 
ing into  it  absolutely  new  meaning — so  long 
did  faith  to  the  Apostles  mean  the  exercise 
of  that  spiritual  faculty  within  them  that 
lived  by  the  life  of  Jesus.  They  were  not 
believing  things  about  Him.  Day  by  day 
they  were  drawing  vigour,  vision,  and  virtue 
from  Him.  And  the  reason  why  the  Gospels 
are  so  invaluable  to  us,  and  no  criticisms 
can  ever  rob  them  of  their  value,  lies 
just  here — they  give  to  us  in  its  simple  beauty, 
its  compelling  reasonableness  and  its  utter 
comprehensiveness,  this  imperishable  pic- 
ture of  the  Son  of  Mary. 

At  the  bidding  of  faith  man  stands  forth 
transfigured  and  transfiguring  in  his  power; 
for  faith  is  a  vast  imused  capacity  inside 
all  men.  This  is  the  emphasis  Christ  lays 
upon  it:  "All  things  are  possible  to  him 
that  believeth. "  "Look  not,"  He  says, 
"even   to    Me   for   immediate   deliverance, 


14    The    Reasonableness    of   Faith 

call  not  on  some  new  power,  seek  not  to 
ally  yourself  with  some  awe-inspiring  thing. 
Can  you  believe?  Believe  with  only  a 
little  belief,  come  with  Me  and  I  will  show 
you.  All  things  are  possible  to  him  that 
believeth. " 

When  Jesus  stands  beside  us  and  calls  on 
us  to  believe,  we  sometimes  feel  that  we, 
too,  can  face  all  the  pathos  and  tragedy  of 
life  as  He  speaks.  Why,  then,  have  we 
done  so  little  with  this  divine  endowment? 
What  are  we  doing  with  it?  Casting  it 
into  the  lumber-room  of  unused  things, 
or  putting  it  in  some  pitiful  way  into  evi- 
dence, as  in  some  homes  they  put  the  family 
Bible  on  a  table  by  itself,  where,  if  they  did 
not  dust  the  room  day  by  day,  you  could 
write  with  your  finger  on  the  cover.  This, 
we  are  told,  is  a  day  in  which  faith  is  wan- 
ing, and  yet  we  believe  in  many  things, 
believe  quite  as  much  as  any  generation 
before  believed,  and  feverishly  follow  the 
things  we  believe.  But  the  faith  of  which 
Christ  spoke,  misdirected  and  misused, 
shrinks  within  us.  Crowded  out  by  mean 
ambition,  debased,  it  loses  its  hold.  Starved 
and  untended,   it   seems  to  fail  us  at  the 


The    Reasonableness    of   Faith     15 

supreme  hour  of  need.  We  do  not  take 
time  to  believe  in  God.  Perhaps  we  know- 
that  once  we  did  believe  in  Him,  and  we 
think  that  our  belief  is  with  us  still;  but 
some  night  the  winds  begin  to  rise,  and  we 
hear  the  voice  of  the  coming  storm.  We 
must  go  out  alone  on  the  water,  and  the 
ship  has,  plank  by  plank,  been  builded  of 
things  we  have  been  and  done. 

Ah !  some  of  us  have  lived  in  havens 
land-locked.  Safely  anchored  we  have  been 
by  stem  and  stem,  and  no  storm  test  of 
life  has  been  possible.  We  have  come  to 
believe  that  our  portion  in  existence  must 
be  everlasting  serenity.  But  no;  we  too 
must  front  the  stress  of  wind  and  weather, 
and  all  we  have  been  and  done  must  be 
tested  by  the  winds  that  blow,  the  floods 
that  flow,  and  the  rains  that  beat  upon  the 
houses  of  our  lives.  Friendships  only  built 
on  favours  accepted;  deeds  that  look  won- 
derful outside,  but  are  hollow  within;  popu- 
lar descrpitions  of  us  with  which  men  flatter 
us,  or  tickle  our  vanity  while  we  know  them 
to  be  more  than  half  deceits — what  are  all 
of  these  worth?  They  are  only  wreckage 
before    the    first    rockings    of    that    storm. 


1 6    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Yet  God  for  every  soul  of  man  hath  pre- 
pared that  which,  doth  he  but  use  it,  will 
bear  him  to  haven  and  safety. 

I  have  seen  an  old  boat  lie  on  the  shore. 
Well  built  it  had  been  and  well-shaped.  Its 
lines  are  fair  and  strong.  There  is  its  rud- 
der; oars  and  sails  lie  wrapped  beneath 
its  thwarts.  Launch  into  the  wild  sea 
and  trust  yourself  to  it,  and  quickly  it 
sinks  with  you  into  the  salt  water.  Any 
child  can  tell  you  why.  For  years  it  has 
lain  unused.  The  suns  have  smitten  it  and 
the  frosts  have  cracked  it.  Its  seams  gape, 
its  timbers  part.  It  is  fairly  shaped ;  it  was 
strongly  built.  It  could  once  carry  fifty. 
Now  it  is  only  a  coffin  for  one.  It  has  never 
been  put  to  sea.  It  is  no  more  help  than  a 
boat  painted  on  canvas.  In  the  hour  of 
trial  it  fails,  as  all  unused,  unexercised 
things  must  fail.  So  it  is  with  faith.  Care- 
fully, wisely,  firmly  within  us,  the  quality 
and  capacity  of  faith  has  been  builded.  It 
was  meant  to  bear  us  through  all  storms 
and  temptations  to  a  fairer,  further  shore; 
but  laid  away,  forgotten,  unused,  it  moulders, 
shrinks  and  dries  up  beyond  recovery. 

But  let  us  turn  and  look  more  deeply  into 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     17 

the  nature  of  faith,  see  how  it  comes  to  be, 
and  why  its  exercise  is  so  vital  to  us.  You 
judge  of  a  tree  by  its  fruits,  not  by  its  leaf, 
or  even  by  its  flower.  You  judge  of  any 
course  of  events  by  its  results;  a  theory 
too,  a  doctrine,  a  philosophy — nay,  more, 
any  government  or  institution.  They  must 
all  submit  to  the  same  test.  By  that  they 
stand  or  fall.  Not  only  is  there  no  fairer 
test,  nor  any  better  all-round  test,  but  there 
is  no  other  test.  This,  you  say,  is  sound 
theory.  Nay,  you  say  it  is  more  than  theory 
— it  is  well-ascertained  fact;  for  though  we 
may  often  deny  and  forget  it,  the  nature  of 
things  around  us  never  forgets  it. 

Nature  has  been  working  on  this  line  for 
ages  untold.  She  only  accepts  and  pre- 
serves as  her  instruments  things  that  suc- 
cessfully endure  this  final  test.  She  has  a 
vast  work  to  do,  carries  on  innumerable 
manufactories  under  inconceivably  numer- 
ous conditions.  She  tries  all  sorts  of  tools 
in  her  vast  workshop,  and  ever  and  always 
casts  aside  all  tools  that  break  or  fail.  In 
the  process  she  piles  up  heaps  of  failures, 
but  the  things  she  finally  arrives  at — the 
good  things,  the  useful  things,  beautiful  and 


1 8    The    Reasonableness    of   Faith 

fitted  things — these  all  have  stood  the  test 
successively.  They  are  not  only  good  but 
they  keep  on  improving.  In  this  consists 
their  vital  goodness.  They  are  all  the  time 
being  tested  by  competition. 

How  we  hated,  as  boys,  our  first  com- 
petitive examinations !  How  well  we  re- 
member the  long  breath  we  drew  when  we 
were  through  the  last  of  them.  And  yet, 
when  we  left  the  examination  room,  as  we 
thought  forever,  we  were  only  entering  the 
larger  examination  hall  of  life.  When  we 
left  the  competition  of  the  book,  study  and 
paper,  we  were  entering  on  a  fiercer  test  of 
competition  still.  For  competition  rules 
everywhere,  in  the  air  and  sky — yes,  far  aloft 
in  the  ether,  in  the  dark  earth  beneath  our 
feet,  in  the  sunless  gulfs  of  the  sea.  Every 
blade  of  grass,  every  ear  of  corn  holds  its 
own  by  competition.  The  multitudinous 
things  that  crawl,  that  live,  that  walk,  that 
swim,  that  fly— they  are  all  of  them,  little 
as  we  notice  it,  holding  their  own  painfully, 
in  circumstances  of  fierce  struggle.  And  so 
it  is  that  from  her  vast  competition  halls 
nature  brings  forth  not  only  the  good  but 
the  best.     Only  the  best  survive,   because 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     19 

she  admits  no  favouritism  in  her  vast  house- 
hold. Her  system  is  absolutely  fair.  She 
scorns  all  suggestion  of  "pull."  She  loves 
the  strong,  the  fair,  the  good,  and  these  at 
their  strongest,  fairest,  and  best.  All  lesser 
goods  and  fairs  and  strongs  are  ever  making 
way,  under  her  order,  for  her  best,  her  fairest 
and  her  strongest. 

When  we  denounce  competition  we  de- 
nounce a  divinely  ordained  process  for 
weeding  out  the  imperfect.  Nay,  further, 
we  denounce  the  only  conceivable  process  by 
which  sorrow,  pain,  imperfection  and  at  last 
death  itself,  can  be  done  away.  Let  us  gird 
up  the  loins  of  our  minds,  face  facts,  and 
cease  crying  for  the  moon.  By  competition 
we  are  what  we  are.  By  competition  our 
children  shall  be,  please  God,  better  than  we. 
God's  great  competitive  examination  board 
is  ever  in  session,  and  through  it  our  nation 
has  been  lately  passing,  as  you  well  know; 
for  what  after  all  is  war,  but  the  competitive 
examinations  of  nations  ? 

The  point  I  want  to  make  is  this:  This 
faith  which  Jesus  demands  of  us  is  a  common 
possession .  This  religious  instinct  which  even 
a  child  possesses   is   acquired  by  us  all  as 


20    The   Reasonableness   of   Faith 

all  other  valuable  qualities  are,  as  the  result 
of  a  system  of  competition.  The  knowledge 
of  these  later  times  has  bidden  us  hold  what 
is  old  with  new  reverence.  The  very  fact 
that  it  is  old  carries  to  the  thoughtful 
mind  proof  of  its  vitality.  Its  age  is  the 
medal  on  its  breast,  telling  of  the  many 
victories  it  has  won,  the  struggles  in  which 
it  has  conquered  things  of  lesser  good  than 
itself.  So  we  value  what  is  old,  and  we  call 
it  beautiful,  for  we  know  it  is  the  result  of 
actual  worth,  that  no  favouritism  of  nature 
has  saved  it  for  us.  And  this  truth  teaches 
us  a  new  respect  for  the  good  things  around 
us  and  within  us.  They  are  not  only  ancient ; 
they  are  costly,  they  are  approved,  they 
have  won  their  right  to  use  and  a  hearing. 
And  the  greatest,  the  most  lasting,  the  most 
universal  of  these  is  faith. 

But  there  is  a  further  reason  for  valuing 
faith,  another  proof  of  its  importance.  It  is 
not  sufficient  in  God's  economy  that  things 
should  be  old ;  they  must  also  be  adaptable, 
for  no  quality  or  possession,  however  vener- 
able, that  lacks  this  capacity  for  adaption 
can  live  on;  or,  to  go  back  to  what  I  have 
said,  can  keep  improving,  can  keep  on  hold- 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     21 

ing  its  own  in  the  competitive  examinations 
of  God.  And  therefore  the  proof  of  the 
vitality  of  faith  is  the  measure  and  magni- 
tude of  its  adaptability.  Adaptability,  in 
this  sense,  comes  to  be  a  greater  sign  of 
vitality  than  age.  And  this  adaptability  is 
the  pre-eminent  quality  of  faith.  When 
man's  condition  was  low,  his  faith  was  base 
bom.  It  clothed  itself  in  base  forms. 
When  his  moral  ideas  were  undeveloped  he 
clothed  his  ideas  of  God  with  his  own  im- 
perfections. When  he  was  cruel,  so  was  his 
God;  lustful,  so  was  his  God;  jealous  and 
full  of  hatred  to  his  enemies,  his  God  was  a 
God  of  battles  and  a  jealous  God.  The 
reason  thoughtless  people  to-day  find  fault 
with  the  Bible  is  because  many  of  the  pre- 
sentations of  God  which  its  pages  bring  to 
us  do  not  agree  with  our  present  conceptions 
of  God.  If  the  Bible  were  not  full  of  mis- 
conceptions, or  old  and  imperfect  concep- 
tions, it  could  not  in  any  sense  be  the  Bible 
at  all.  It  could  not  be  a  true  history  of 
man's  reaching  out  in  earlier  times  toward 
God.  In  centuries  much  later  than  those 
whose  record  we  have  in  the  Bible  you  can 
note    the    same    process.     From    pagan    to 


2  2     The    Reasonableness   of   Faith 

puritan  you  follow  the  idea  of  God,  and  God 
is  chiefly  a  law-giver,  His  chief  seat  the 
judgment  seat.  His  title  the  Lord  of  Hosts. 

But  our  faith  calls,  yearns  for  something 
higher,  for  a  God  higher  than  the  law-giving 
God  and  the  ruling  God.  Yes,  for  One  in 
whom  infinite  tenderness  and  mercy  can, 
as  the  old  hymn  puts  it, 

"Make  the  dying  bed 
Feel  soft  as  downy  pillows  are." 

So  in  the  Bible  and,  since  the  Bible  was 
written,  still  on  in  human  history,  faith 
gathers  up  all  the  broken  lights  that  have 
come  from  God,  all  the  thoughts  which  men 
have  in  their  best  hours  worthily  formed 
of  Him ;  gathers  them  from  the  artist  yearn- 
ing for  His  beauty;  from  the  poet,  divining 
His  meaning;  from  the  philosopher  thirsting 
for  His  truth;  yes,  from  misunderstood  re- 
former and  martyr.  From  all  religions  and 
all  histories  faith  gathers  them  up,  and 
sees  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus  the  explana- 
tion and  vindication  of  them  all.  Old  and 
new,  changing  because  it  lives,  who  can  fix 
for  it  a  birth  date,  and  who  can  set  any 
boundary  to  its  advancing  tide?  Man's 
hunger  for  and   appreciation   of   God  !     So 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     23 

the  Son  of  Man  explains  to  us  the  universal 
instinct.  We  are  not  inventing  an  explana- 
tion of  faith.  We  are  face  to  face  with  its 
actuality.  This  faith  of  ours  is  as  much  an 
evolution  as  our  eye  is,  as  our  hands  are; 
and  to-day  with  us  it  is  not  the  rudimentary 
thing  it  once  was,  just  as  our  eyes  are  not 
the  rudimentary  things  they  were  once,  or 
our  hands  the  rudimentary  things  the 
monkeys  once  had.  Eyes  and  hands  and 
faith  have  all  been  developed  by  ages  of 
painful  use. 

But  I  hear  some  one  object,  and  the  ob- 
jection at  first  seems  both  reasonable  and 
weighty:  What  proof  have  you  that  this 
faith — the  result  of  evolution,  possessing 
wonderful  powers  of  adaption  —  has  not, 
like  many  other  old  things,  fulfilled  its  pur- 
pose and  is  now  no  longer  useful?  Let  us 
consider  this  a  moment.  There  are  things 
within  us  that  are  old,  and  have  no  doubt 
been  in  the  past  adaptable,  but,  so  far  as 
we  can  see,  are  useful  no  longer.  What 
distinguishes  them?  They  are  like  links 
connecting  us  to  the  brutishness  of  the  past. 
They  are  marks  of  a  lower  order.  The 
scientists  call  them  vestigia,   for  they   are 


24    The   Reasonableness   of   Faith 

carried  around  by  the  living  body,  but  are 
not  fulfilling  a  living  function ;  are  not  vitally 
important  to  any  part  of  our  lives.  The 
proof  that  we  can  do  without  them  is  that 
we  do  not  use  them  at  all,  or  use  them 
less  and  less. 

Now  faith  I  hold  is  probably  not  one  of 
these.  What  is  best  and  highest  and  most 
seemly  in  our  lives  is  ever  dependent  on  the 
exercise  of  the  religious  instinct.  It  would 
not  be  hard  to  prove  that  in  every  depart- 
ment of  progress  man  fortifies  and  inspires 
himself  by  the  use  of  this  part  of  himself — 
the  inspirational  impulse  toward  the  best  of 
which  he  is  cognizant.  I  have  no  claim  to 
scientific  learning,  but  I  can  quote  the 
words  of  one  who  had  the  greatest  mind 
probably  that  Germany  ever  produced 
and  I  remember  again  that  it  is  Goethe  who 
says:  "Only  the  believing  ages  are  the 
fruitful  ages. "  Scientific  progress  and  scien- 
tific men  are  commonly  supposed  to  have 
little  to  do  with  faith  (a  supposition  which, 
by  the  way,  I  think  is  false),  but  to-day 
faith  has  modified  the  whole  aspect  of  science. 
Contrast  the  greatest  scientists  the  past  has 
produced  with  the  attitude  of  the  present 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     25 

scientific  men.  Consider  the  wisdom  of 
Egypt  confronting  the  baffling  mysteries  of 
the  universe  !  Hear  the  spirit  of  the  past 
speak  in  the  motto  of  the  Temple  of  Isis :  "I 
am  whatever  hath  been,  is,  or  ever  will  be, 
and  my  veil  hath  no  man  yet  lifted. "  Now 
hear  the  later  voice:  "Veil  after  veil  have 
we  lifted,  and  her  face  grows  more  beautiful, 
august  and  wonderful  with  every  barrier 
withdrawn. " 

But  let  us  contrast  religion  where  faith 
dwells  and  religion  where  mere  resignation 
takes  the  place  of  the  hope  and  inspiration 
that  rightly  belongs  to  faith.  For  let  us 
not  forget  this:  Faith  is  never  mere  ac- 
ceptance; it  is  the  appreciation  of  God  that 
yearns  and  strives  and  grows  from  good  to 
better,  and  from  pure  to  purer.  It  is  the 
religious  instinct  in  exercise. 

On  reading  an  interesting  book  lately,  the 
tale  of  a  strange  life  lived  in  the  Far  East — 
"Colonel  Gardiner's  Memoirs" — I  came  on 
this  story.  Gardiner  was  staying  with  a 
mountain  chieftain  who  held  sway  over  a 
lonely  valley  on  the  borders  of  Thibet. 
This  valley  and  all  its  inhabitants  were 
threatened  by  the  ruthless  incursion  of  a 


26     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

more  powerful  chieftain,  of  whom  all  the 
people  lived  in  dread.  Gardiner's  host  set 
himself  to  procure  a  present  which,  when 
presented  to  the  tyrant,  would  save  his  people 
from  rapine.  An  old  fakir  lived  in  a  cave 
at  the  mouth  of  the  valley.  For  years  the 
old  man  had  lived  only  to  pray  and  to  share 
his  scanty  provision  with  travellers  poorer 
than  himself.  He  possessed,  however,  an 
extraordinary  ruby,  which  had  come  to  him 
by  direct  descent,  a  family  heirloom  from 
the  time  of  the  great  Timour.  Gardiner 
describes  their  visit  to  the  old  man.  They 
found  him  immersed  in  contemplation,  and 
the  chief  told  the  cause  of  their  visit,  the 
threatened  invasion,  the  certain  ruin  to  all 
his  people,  and  begged  that,  in  the  hope  of 
propitiating  the  tyrant,  the  old  man  would 
give  to  him  his  one  treasure.  He  listened, 
said  Gardiner,  and  then  he  arose,  went  to  a 
corner  of  the  hut  and  unwound  the  jewel 
(which,  by  the  way,  was  as  safe  in  his  keep- 
ing as  though  it  had  been  in  the  Bank  of 
England,  for  no  one  in  that  country  would 
touch  the  dwelling  of  the  fakir),  unwound 
the  jewel  from  a  bit  of  rag  and  put  it  in  his 
visitor's  hands,   saying:     "I   hope  the  gift 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     27 

may  have  the  result  you  expect."  Large 
money  was  offered,  but  this  the  old  man 
would  not  take.  "  But  you  may,  if  you  will, " 
he  said,  "give  me  a  larger  allowance  of  corn, 
for  many  hungry  people  pass  this  way." 
Then  he  asked  to  be  left  alone,  and  com- 
posed himself  to  prayer  again.  Here  in 
this  lonely,  distant,  unknown  land,  where 
no  Anglo-Saxon  had  ever  come  before,  was 
holiness  of  a  pure  type,  unworldliness 
complete  in  its  renunciation,  charity  as 
unselfish  as  that  of  the  Son  of  Mary 
Himself.  Yet  numberless  such  men  have 
for  long  centuries  sat  in  their  caves  or  huts, 
looking  on  the  fair  plains  of  the  valleys 
of  those  cruel  lands.  Alas !  their  holiness 
has  not  availed  in  those  regions  to  advance 
by  an  inch,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  cause  of 
life,  humanity  and  truth.  Lust  and  cruelty 
reign  supreme.  Regions  once  prosperous 
and  happy  are  desert  and  soaked  in  blood. 
Man  still  remains  as  he  has  been  for  cen- 
turies, a  ravening  wild  beast.  And  why? 
Because  the  progressive  power  of  religion 
lives  in  faith  alone,  and  not  in  mere  un- 
worldliness. No  renunciation,  no  unselfish 
charity,   no  piety,  nor  all  these  combined, 


28    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

however  splendid  they  are,  can,  when  faith 
has  fled  from  them,  permanently  uplift 
mankind. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  heredity  in  good- 
ness. Men  are  like  tops  often.  The  top 
spins  a  long  time  after  the  string  that  spun 
it  is  withdrawn,  but  in  time  it  totters  to  a 
fall.  So  hereditary  goodness  stored  up  will 
uphold  individuals,  will  for  a  time  even 
sustain  society;  but  take  faith  away,  and 
though  courage  still  upholds  the  brave, 
and  fortitude  still  supports  the  strong  of 
heart,  the  skies  have  become  gray  over  the 
pilgrim  masses  of  men,  their  marching  lines 
have  become  broken,  and  no  sweet  singing 
cheers  the  march,  no  heavenly  allies  help 
them  on  their  way.  Such  pilgrims  will  not 
keep  on  marching  forever,  such  soldiers  will 
soon  cease  to  fight ;  for  even  Mr.  Greatheart 
is  himself  a  pilgrim,  without  hope  of  a 
celestial  city;  and  Galahad  a  knight-errant, 
who  dares  no  longer  hope  for  a  glimpse  of 
the  white  light  of  the  Holy  Grail. 

But  let  us  see  how  the  Church  has  dealt 
with  faith.  First,  let  us  remember  it  is  not 
the  policy  of  the  Lord  himself  to  utterly 
destroy  old   conceptions   that   are   part   of 


The    Reasonableness   of   Faith    29 

man's  very  growing.  He  replaces  them 
slowly  with  better  ones.  And  so  His  new 
gospel,  as  it  clashed  with  time-honoured 
beliefs,  must  merge  and  mingle  with  them. 
Mankind's  whole  previous  conception  of 
God  was  as  unlike  Jesus  Christ  as  it  well 
could  be.  When  the  bodily  vision  of  Him 
passed,  the  great  doctors  and  saints  of  the 
time  soon  began  to  create  from  His  teach- 
ings, as  they  understood  them,  systems  of 
religion  crude  in  form  and  profession,  differ- 
ing radically  from  Christ's  gospel.  It  could 
not  be  otherwise.  Man's  dominating  idea 
of  God  had  been  the  God  of  force.  Sheer 
almightiness  was  exalted — man  bidden  to 
bow — but  sheer  almightiness  has  no  sweet 
reasonableness.  It  may  command  and 
threaten,  but  it  ever  remains  a  sort  of  militant 
rule  of  life,  a  martial  law  for  conscience ;  the 
rigorous  control  during  a  crisis,  not  the 
normal  condition  of  a  peaceful  and  pro- 
gressive life.  But  since  the  mere  almighty 
idea  of  God  of  necessity  died  slowly,  ere  it 
passed  there  grew  from  it  a  whole  series  of 
conceptions  of  a  punishing  and  damning 
God.  Men  bowed  to  religious  laws  as  they 
bowed  to  national  laws.     The  world  owed 


3©    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

much  to  the  iron-law-clutch  of  rule,  and  in 
the  Church,  in  lesser  scale,  came  naturally 
to  be  reproduced  a  similar  condition.  It 
seemed  reasonable  for  men  to  demand,  in 
the  name  of  God,  obedience,  acceptance 
of  certain  definite  things.  They  made  pic- 
tures of  Jesus  that  were  often  veriest  cari- 
catures. They  baked  their  truths  into  hard 
and  fast  shape.  Things  that  appeared  to 
be  true  about  Jesus,  men  were  told  they 
must  believe;  and  faith  came  to  be  a  de- 
mand, and  not  the  exercise  of  an  instinct. 

The  movement  was  inevitable.  It  was 
the  highest  sort  of  religious  movement  that 
the  time  was  capable  of,  but  none  the  less 
it  replaced  Christ's  idea  of  faith  with  a 
lesser  one.  It  practically  said  that  faith 
was  not  merely  the  exercise  of  the  religious 
instinct  addressed  to  its  Lord,  but  the  en- 
forced belief  in  a  complex  system  of  things. 
I  have  dwelt  on  this  devolution  of  Chris- 
tianity just  to  show  that  it  was  a  growth  in 
the  opposite  direction  to  Christ's  teaching. 
As  I  have  said,  it  had  to  be.  The  world  was 
not  capable  of  evolving  or  accepting  any- 
thing higher.  But  truth  put  in  hard  and 
fast  shape,   or  in  a  word,   dogmas,   cannot 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     31 

produce  the  highest  form  of  Christ's  like- 
ness. Dogmas  are  poor  food  for  the  soul. 
The  Great  Physician  knew  best,  and  seeing 
far  into  the  future  as  He  did,  and  knowing 
what  must  be  the  deepest  needs  of  the 
present,  as  well  as  of  future  times,  He  never 
once  made  a  demand  on  any  soul  for  this 
lower  sort  of  faith.  Well  He  knew  that 
belief  in  the  mere  almightiness  of  God  only 
tends  to  make  strong  natures  diabolic;  that 
repression  incites  rebellion.  And  so,  in  not 
one  single,  authentic  incident  did  He  so 
represent  His  Father  or  make  claim  for 
Himself.  Recal  one  instant,  if  you  can, 
where  faith,  as  Jesus  demanded  it,  meant 
believing  in  things.  Always  and  ever,  rather, 
did  faith  with  Him  mean  belief  in  the  sort 
of  God  that  "I  reveal  to  you;"  "He  that 
hath  seen  fne  hath  seen  the  Father. " 

So  much  for  Christ's  demand.  How 
about  the  Apostles'  demand  for  faith? 
What  did  they  mean,  for  example,  by  faith 
as  a  pre-requisite  to  baptism?  What  was 
baptism?  Was  it  more  than  a  common 
rite  to  which  was  given  a  new  significance, 
an  open  confession  in  the  sight  of  men  of 
obedience  to  Jesus,   a  declaration  that  He 


$2     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

was  the  Son  of  God ;  that  His  cause  was  the 
one  to  fight  for;  His  society  the  divine  and 
final  society?  Those  who  would  be  His 
followers  must  be  baptized.  What  was  the 
form  of  baptism?  We  know  that  baptism 
at  first  was  not  administered  in  any  other 
form  but  the  name  of  Jesus.  The  very 
early  Christians  were  not  even  baptized 
in  the  name  of  the  Trinity.  This  was  a 
later  form.  Belief  in  Jesus  was  the  one 
thing  demanded,  and  that  without  any 
disquisition  on  the  nature  of  God  at  all. 

There  is  not  one  single  line  in  all  St.  Paul's 
Thirteen  Letters  to  lead  us  to  suppose  that 
he  laid  any  stress,  with  the  multitude  of  his 
converts,  on  mysterious  questions  of  religious 
truth;  whether,  for  instance,  Jesus  was  the 
Son  of  Mary  alone,  or  the  Son  of  Mary  and 
Joseph.  The  subject  does  not  come  up 
with  St.  Paul.  Nor  is  there  one  line  to  lead 
us  to  suppose  he  formulated  for  his  converts 
any  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Rather,  Paul 
said,  as  his  Master  had  said  before  him, 
"Jesus  stands  before  you— do  you  admire 
Him,  can  you  love  Him,  can  you  find  it  in 
your  hearts  to  obey  Him?  I  speak  to  you 
as  the  Apostle,  the  messenger  to  a  despairing 


The    Reasonableness   of   Faith     33 

world  of  the  visible  God  in  humanity.    Here 
at  last  is  rest,  pardon  and  hope  for  men." 

But  this  is  not  what  men  are  asked  to  do 
to-day.  They  are  confronted  with,  or  think 
they  are  confronted  with,  certain  churchly 
demands.  They  must  stand  up  to  say  a 
creed,  and  they  are  told  that  that  creed  is 
not  simply  a  symbol  of  their  faith,  but  an 
accurate  definition  of  things  which  they 
consider  to  be  often  utterly  beyond  human 
knowing,  or  at  least  human  defining.  Or, 
second,  they  must  submit  to  the  rite  of 
baptism.  But  baptism  does  not  seem  to 
them  to  be  quite  what  the  old  rite  was. 
Once  it  meant  danger  braved,  and  now, 
too  often,  they  see  it  degraded  till  it  is  merely 
a  fashionable  function.  And  the  third  de- 
mand is,  that  they  should  kneel  at  the  com- 
munion table,  where  again  "  believing  things" 
confronts  them.  They  have  some  dim  idea 
of  what  it  means  to  kneel  with  the  Lord  of 
long  ago,  when  the  multitude  clamoured 
for  Him  and  were  plotting  His  death,  to 
kneel  around  the  altars  of  the  early  Church 
when  heathen  Rome  thundered  and  the 
Arena  reeked  of  blood.  But  what  does  this 
kneeling  mean   to-day?     They  are  told  it 


34    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

expresses  a  sorrow  for  sin  which  they  cannot 
always  honestly  call  forth. 

I  might  go  farther,  but  time  forbids  me. 
Here  these  three  .simple  acts,  these  demands 
of  the  Church,  are  each  and  all  of  them  made 
to  rest  on  a  false  idea  of  faith.  They  are 
not  made  the  expression  of  personal  obedi- 
ence and  reverence  for  Jesus.  They  have 
been  perverted  from  that.  And  can  we  not 
see  that  the  natural  man,  the  inferior 
man,  often  likes  this  system  of  perver- 
sion, that  he  will  readily  comply  with 
these  things?  Cannot  any  one  see  that 
he  does  this  because  he  is  a  lesser 
man  ?  The  more  scrupulous  men,  however — 
the  men  built  to  a  higher  order,  whose  re- 
ligion does  not  mean  a  bargaining  with  God, 
but  an  effort  to  follow  God  in  honesty  of 
soul — these  greater,  larger  men  cannot  ac- 
cept such  conditions,  but  ever  draw  back 
from  them.  They  do  so,  not  captiously, 
but  in  order  that  they  may  safeguard  the 
very  eye  of  the  soul,  the  religious  instinct 
itself.  A  faith  in  things  suits  the  natural 
man,  alas,  too  well.  He  is  ever  its  de- 
fender. But  it  leaves  uncomforted  and 
unblest  men  of  larger  mould. 


The   Reasonableness    of   Faith    35 

So,  based  on  this  misapprehension  of  the 
meaning  of  faith,  there  has  grown  up  a  false 
idea  of  the  Church.  From  the  Church  men 
turn  away,  for  she  seems  to  come  to  them 
with  intolerable  demands.  She  makes  them 
suspect  God,  not  love  Him.  She  seems  an 
exacting  Church,  not  a  giving  and  freeing 
Church,  as  of  old  she  came  in  beauty  and 
might  to  men.  The  best  and  most  scrupu- 
lous men  hold  back  from  her  too  often, 
doubtful  of  that  to  which  they  are  asked  to 
commit  themselves.  Could  they  but  realize 
that  religious  faith  is  but  a  striving  after 
obedience  to  Jesus,  the  simple,  great 
Jesus  Christ  of  the  gospels;  to  seek  to  do 
what  He  would  have  us  do  to  make  earth 
more  fit  for  His  divine  rule,  to  slowly  lift 
life's  laws  into  harmony  with  love's  law ! 
Let  the  Church  demand  these  things  of 
men,  and  again  will  men  listen  to  her,  and 
again  will  she  lead  them  on  in  the  path  of 
a  high  resolve.  And  though  they  stagger, 
painfully  at  times,  yet  will  they  follow  her, 
for  following  her  will  then  be  following  Him. 

Faith,  then,  as  Jesus  and  also  His  Apostles 
demanded  its  exercise,  was  not  believing 
things  that  were  hard  to  believe.     It  was 


36    The    Reasonableness    op   Faith 

using  a  divinely  implanted  instinct,  a  power 
and  a  faculty  within  us  that  answers  to  the 
presentation  of  the  living,  loving  God  made 
visible  in  Jesus  Christ.  When  this  faith 
has  failed  to  fasten  its  grasp  on  Him,  again 
and  again  it  has  created  for  itself  distorted 
images,  again  and  again  it  has  found  itself 
disastrously  following  wandering  fires;  but 
still  it  ever  contains  within  itself  power  to 
turn  to  the  true  vision,  and  bow  before  the 
supreme  beauty,  perceiving  the  beautiful 
to  be  beautiful,  and  the  good  to  be  good, 
and,  therefore,  sent  from  God.  From  this 
the  Christian  Church  started,  and  to  this 
the  Christian  Church  must  return.  This  is 
the  real  Church.  This  is  the  real  Christian- 
ity. This  is  the  Christianity  that  shook 
the  whole  world  and  lifted  it  out  of  its 
despair.  This  is  the  Christianity  that  can 
breathe  peace  into  the  deep  imrestfulness 
of  our  times.  It  shows  no  defect  of  nature 
to  refuse  to  believe  in  old  things  just  because 
they  are  old.  Tradition,  however  vener- 
able and  weighty,  may  be  rooted  in  utter 
error.  It  has  often  been  proved  to  be  so 
rooted.  To  find  one's  self,  therefore,  incapable 
of    accepting    truths    accredited    by    most 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     37 

venerable  tradition  shows  no  defect  of 
nature.  I  repeat;  to  refuse  to  believe  things 
is  no  sin;  but  to  refuse  Jesus  the  faith  He 
demands — ah,  what  shall  we  say  of  that  ? 

We  are  told  men  take  masses  of  precious 
stuff,  and,  subjecting  it  to  intolerable  heat, 
expect  at  last  to  see  glowing  in  its  centre 
one  tiny,  blood-red  drop — the  ruby.  So  in 
Jesus  there  is  for  man  the  declaration  of 
his  own  preciousness.  The  ages  of  human 
struggle  have  not  been  in  vain.  The  chaos 
that  often  seemed  to  engulf  man's  life  was 
only  the  prelude  to  God's  cosmos.  All  the 
pains,  and  all  the  struggles,  and  all  the 
hopes  of  the  mothers  and  fathers  of  the 
world  were  justified  when  at  last,  as  the 
result  of  all  the  intolerable  heat  and  pain  of 
living,  there  came  forth  One  utterly  beauti- 
ful, completely  good,  and  men  bowed  before 
Him  and  cried :     "  Behold  the  Son  of  God  !" 

More  than  once  before  on  earth  had  burst 
forth  that  ecstatic  cry.  But  when  at  last 
His  own  lips  speak,  we  hear  Him  say:  "The 
Son  of  Man!"  To  fail  to  see  in  Him  a 
present  beauty,  a  visible  loveliness,  to  fail  to 
hear  and  own  the  sway  and  inspiration  of 
His  heavenly  music — this  indeed  is  to  argue 


38    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

defect  and  limitation ;  for  such  failure  means, 
in  part  at  least,  a  moral  death. 

Press  faith  on  men.  Emphasize  it  as 
believing  things,  and  you  have  but  erected 
thorny  hedges  around  the  cross  of  the 
Christ  through  which  men  must  peep,  over 
which,  wounded,  they  may  strain,  and  after 
all  only  see  partial  views  and  catch  distorted 
outlines  of  Him  Whom  you  would  place 
within.  This  has  been  done  again  and 
again;  done  with  the  best  intention,  done 
by  those  possessed  of  a  passionate  love  for 
Him  Whom  they  would  protect.  But  the 
human  hedges,  whether  erected  by  friends 
or  foes,  with  spiny  barrier  forbid  the  child- 
faith  He  so  loved  to  come  near  Him. 

I  would  not  be  misunderstood.  Creeds 
are  necessary,  dogmas  in  their  place  essen- 
tial. I  have  said  nothing  to  decry  them. 
Many  dogmas  and  doctrines  have  been 
slowly  evolved,  and  are  the  result  of  much 
pain,  of  long  and  reverent  study,  and  show 
a  profound  insight  as  to  human  needs  and 
divine  revelation.  Thus  thoughtfully,  rever- 
ently let  us  receive  these  partial  statements 
of  eternal  truth,  till  the  Master  open  our 
minds   for   better   and   higher  things   still. 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith     39 

Thoughtful  men  will  readily  admit  that  we 
must  have  creed  in  every  active  relation  of 
life.  The  merchant  has  a  creed  in  his  office ; 
the  scientist  one  in  his  laboratory;  the 
brick-layer  and  builder  one  at  his  finger's 
ends;  and  the  soldier  who  charges  and  dies 
at  San  Juan  Hill,  or  amid  the  kopjes  of 
Natal  does  so  because  he  accepts  and  obeys 
the  soldier's  creed.  The  creed  is  a  certain 
accepted  thing  on  which  I,  as  a  man,  base 
my  action.  The  creed  is  a  working  neces- 
sity at  all  times.  In  every  department  of 
life,  as  much  as  in  the  religious  department, 
"no  creed"  means  paralysis. 

And  still  further  I  must  hold  my  creed 
with  other  men,  and  make  it  a  basis  of 
working  with  other  men.  The  individualist 
simply  argues  himself  a  fool  when  he  says: 
"I  must  unite  with  other  men  to  make 
money,  unite  to  get  learning,  imite  to  pro- 
duce any  valuable  earthwork,  or  unite  to 
defend  anything  that  is  worth  defending. 
But  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  doing 
good  and  developing  my  own  character,  let 
me  alone.  Here  I  will  be  my  own  guide. 
Here  no  man  shall  dictate  to  me,  aid  me, 
or  judge  me."     He  may  be  perfectly  in- 


40     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

telligent,  and  have  thought  intelligently 
along  other  lines,  but  along  the  spiritual 
line  he  is  not  a  thinker.  He  is  talking 
foolishly.     All  this  is  true  and  timely. 

But  what  to-day  is  most  important  to 
emphasize  surely  is  this :  all  these  doctrines, 
dogmas,  and  creeds,  however  necessary  they 
may  be,  are  but  crutches  and  walking-sticks, 
not  hands  and  feet.  They  are  but  a  tempor- 
ary expression  of  the  eternal  verity,  and,  as 
they  change  and  pass,  by  their  very  change 
are  evidencing  the  might  of  the  living  truth 
which,  because  it  is  the  everlasting  seed, 
can  ever,  must  ever,  reclothe  itself  in  a 
series  of  new  and  beautiful  bodies,  thus 
proving  its  life. 

Shortly  before  he  died  Tennyson  said: 
"My  most  passionate  desire  is  to  obtain  a 
clearer  and  fuller  view  of  God."  So  spoke 
and  still  speak  the  great  of  the  earth.  For 
man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone.  And  if 
we  have  learned  in  our  heart  of  hearts  to 
want  Jesus,  then  some  glorious  day  He  will 
surely  open  our  eyes  to  see  the  things  we 
cannot  see  now.  The  way  shall  be  open 
for  us,  and  the  lame  man  shall  leap  as  the 
hart,  and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb  shall  sing. 


The   Reasonableness   of   Faith    41 

The  little  lame  boy  needs  his  crutch  as  he 
limps  beside  his  father;  but  when  they  both 
of  them  come  to  the  stream-side,  his  father 
takes  him  in  his  arms,  and  he  needs  his 
crutches  no  more. 

Let  me  beg,  then,  my  friends,  your  care- 
ful consideration  for  the  meaning  of  faith.  I 
insist  on  it  as  of  vital  importance  to-day. 
Oh  !  let  us  search  our  hearts  so  that  we  may 
keep  alive  and  in  health  this  divinely  ap- 
preciative part  of  us.  We  are  making  pro- 
vision for  this  part  of  our  life  itself.  It  is 
ever  the  eye  of  the  soul ;  and  all  the  spicery 
of  all  the  Indies,  all  the  glut  of  all  the  seas, 
all  the  flattery  of  all  the  myriad  sycophants 
of  our  time,  cannot  take  its  place,  nay, 
cannot  satisfy  the  soul  from  which  faith  is 
departing. 

Be  you  inside  the  Church  or  outside  the 
Church,  I  charge  you,  then,  make  provision 
for  this  faith  that  is  in  you,  this  religious 
faculty  God  has  given  you,  which  you  hold 
by  virtue  of  the  painful  struggles  of  the  past, 
and  for  the  handing  down  of  which  to  your 
children  you  will  be  held  accountable  by 
God.  Keep  the  religious  instinct  alight. 
Keep  single  this  divine  part.     For  in  each 


42     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

soul  of  man  it  is  the  little  window  opening 
to  the  Everlasting  Day. 

It  is  because  this  wonderful  religious  in- 
stinct and  aspiration  within  us  links  us  to 
God,  that  faith,  and  faith  only,  can  trans- 
form. By  faith's  use  it  is  absolutely  true 
we  are  transformed  men.  Faith  softens  us, 
widens  us,  deepens  our  sympathy.  It 
breathes  a  peace  over  all  our  life.  Why, 
take  it  in  the  lower  sphere.  You  trust  a  friend 
of  great  resources — you  who  are  poor  and 
friendless  and  burdened  with  a  load  you 
cannot  carry.  You  go  to  your  friend,  you 
lay  your  case  before  him.  He  meets  you 
with  kindly  hand  and  eye,  and  before  you 
know  it  your  burden  is  rolling  from  your 
shoulders,  and  you  go  away  from  his  house 
or  his  office  with  lighter  tread  and  hope  re- 
bom.  Or  you  trust  in  some  one  you  love — 
your  friend,  your  child — and  in  the  strength 
of  that  trust,  no  matter  how  fierce  the  sun 
or  how  cruel  the  cold  and  frost,  you  find 
warmth  and  shelter.  What  accomplishes 
the  wonder?  It  is  just  faith.  Faith  in 
what  is  highest  and  best  in  those  you  know 
down  here.  And  so  you  go  forth  to  life's 
inevitable   struggles   with   a   gentler  heart. 


The    Reasonableness    of    Faith    43 

Faith  justifies  all  it  does  and  sees  here  by 
what  it  believes  in  beyond.  Faith  is  in- 
tuition triumphing  over  appearances,  "the 
substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence 
of  things  unseen."  Put  trust  in  God,  the 
Good  over  all,  the  Worker  in  all,  the  Power 
behind  all,  and  at  last  the  Judge  of  all — not 
the  outside  and  distant  God,  but  the  immi- 
nent and  inside  God,  moving  through  all 
men.  When  we  reach  this  point,  my  friends, 
we  hear  an  echo  of  divine  harmony,  and  we 
know  the  beginnings  of  a  holy  peace. 

"We  know  in  part — how,  then,  can  we 
Make  plain  each  heavenly  mystery  ? 
Yet  still  the  Almighty  understands 
Our  human  hearts,  our  human  hands, 
And,  overarching  all  our  creeds. 
Gives  His  wide  presence  to  our  needs." 

And  now  as  I  close  I  turn  specially  to  you 
young  men  and  women  who  to-day  go  forth 
from  this  great  university  into  the  larger 
life  beyond.  Oh,  still  it  is  true,  true  to-day 
as  it  was  eighteen  hundred  years  ago — ''all 
things  are  possible  to  him  that  believeth." 
Believe  in  your  friends,  believe  in  your 
country,  in  your  institutions,  in  yourself,  in 
your  God.  Believe  in  your  dreams,  your 
best  and  highest  and  holiest  dreams.     Many 


44    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

things  you  may  have  to  give  up,  but  never 
surrender  these.  Use  the  Belief  you  have, 
and  it  will  surely  grow  to  more.     For 

"So  nigh  is  glory  to  our  dust 
So  close  is  God  to  man, 
When  duty  whispers  low,  'Thou  must,* 
The  youth  replies,  'I  can.'" 


COURAGE 

"Add  to  your  faith  courage." 

//  Peter,  i:  5 

Why  does  the  display  of  courage  always 
move  us,  even  when  that  courage  belongs  to 
what  we  would  call  the  lower  order?  We 
love  a  brave  dog  above  a  cowardly  one. 
Why  is  it  we  resent,  as  a  personal  insult, 
any  hint  of  the  want  of  courage  in  our- 
selves? I  believe,  my  friends,  we  have 
here  an  unconscious  tribute  to  a  divine  law. 
We  accept  the  presence  of  courage  as  neces- 
sary, we  resent  the  absence  of  it,  are  filled 
with  shame  at  the  thought  of  the  absence 
of  it,  because  courage  is  a  divine  necessity. 
No  race  can  flourish  or  ever  has  flourished, 
without  courage.  In  the  long  ago,  brute 
courage  was  necessary  in  brute  struggle; 
and  through  those  ages  of  strife  life  had  to 
pass.  As  life  moves  upward  toward  its 
farther  goal,  the  nature  of  courage,  of 
course,  changes,  but  the  necessity  for  it 
45 


46    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

remains  the  same.  Environment  will  do 
much  for  a  people,  craft  and  finesse  for  a 
time  may  save  a  nation's  life;  but,  sooner 
or  later,  however  favoured  that  race  may 
be,  without  courage  it  passes  from  the 
regard  and  admiration  of  mankind.  Some 
thoughtlessly,  I  know,  instance  the  Jews 
as  a  people  who  have  held  their  own  mar- 
vellously and  yet  were  lacking  in  courage. 
Yet  but  a  slight  study  of  that  nation's 
history  makes  it  evident  that  nothing  but 
sheer  valour  saved  the  chosen  people 
again  and  again. 

To  pass,  however,  more  immediately  to 
the  sort  of  courage  which  the  writer  pleads 
for — "Add,"  he  says,  "to  your  faith  cour- 
age. "  Courage,  without  faith,  as  I  have  tried 
to  point  out  briefly,  is  a  powerful  thing.  The 
courage  of  Rome  was  pitiless  and  unmoral. 
The  courage  of  Greece  co-existed  with  con- 
tempt for  all  mankind  except  the  Greek.  But 
it  is  not  the  unmoral  courage  of  Rome,  nor 
the  hypercritical  courage  of  the  Greek,  that 
can  stand  us  in  stead  to-day.  These,  in  no 
sense,  could  be  said  to  have  added  courage 
to  their  faith.  Nor  will  every  imion  of 
faith  and  courage  avail  to  make  and  keep 


Courage  47 

man  great.  The  Barbary  pirates  have  faith 
as  well  as  courage.  The  Soudanese  have 
an  enthusiastic  faith  and  matchless  courage. 
Perhaps  they  are  physically  the  bravest 
race  that  tread  the  earth  to-day;  yet,  in 
their  combination  of  faith  and  courage, 
there  is  no  moral  quality,  and  they  are 
thrust  out  beyond  the  bounds  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  by  the  cruel  law  of  civilization 
must  inevitably  perish. 

And  so  we  come,  my  friends,  to  the  con- 
clusion that  valour  necessary  to  the  develop- 
ment of  Christian  character,  the  valour  we 
need  to  add  to  our  faith,  must  be  a  valour 
of  no  obsolete  type,  no  mere  physical  bravery, 
no  mere  willingness  to  contend  against  long 
odds,  to  risk  everything  in  the  contention. 
It  must  go  forward  to  its  work,  the  ally  and 
support  of  an  intelligent  faith,  a  growing 
faith,  faith  that  grasps  the  truth  of  new 
ideas;  valour  which,  at  any  cost  to  self- 
interest  and  self-pleasing,  determines  to 
achieve  them.  Faith  will  vitalize  and  ap- 
propriate new  forms,  courage  fit  itself  to 
new  conditions,  and  thus  only  can  the  cause 
of  God  and  man  be  won.  Such  character 
may  indeed  be  hard   to   mould,  such  task 


48    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

hard  to  achieve.  But  let  me  remind  you, 
this  Sunday  morning,  that  if  the  path  be- 
fore us  is  steep  and  thorny,  and  the  enemies 
against  us  are  many  and  strong,  they  will 
be  not  few  that  are  on  our  side.  Ours  is  in 
truth  a  high  calling.  If  ever  a  people 
should  be  called  on  to  exercise  a  high  degree 
of  courage,  we  are  that  people.  The  herit- 
age we  have  received  is  rich  in  both  faith 
and  courage.  Those  peoples  whose  blood 
mingled  in  our  veins  were  faithful  among 
the  faithful,  were  bravest  among  the  brave. 
English,  German,  Huguenot,  Scandinavian, 
Celt — where  has  bravery  dwelt,  where  has 
faith  purified  and  inspired  mankind,  if  not 
in  these  families  of  men?  Their  courage, 
their  faith,  are  our  heritage  to-day.  It  is 
for  us  to  be  worthy  of  that  heritage. 

Why  do  I  press  on  you,  my  people  in  St. 
George's,  the  need  of  courage?  I  do  so 
because  I  see  all  around  us  things  which, 
it  seems  to  me,  tend  to  make  us  ignore  and 
forget  its  imperative  need.  First  of  all, 
our  easy  position  among  the  nations,  the 
happy  fortune  of  our  lot,  our  immense  un- 
earned estate,  rich  beyond  precedent  in  all 
that  goes  to  make  the  resources  on  which 


Courage  49 

a  people  can  build  prosperity;  the  un- 
exampled suddenness  of  our  riches;  an 
unassailable  position,  hedged  off  from  trou- 
ble by  three  thousand  miles  of  sea;  set,  as 
it  were,  alone  in  the  midst  of  the  earth, 
the  strifes,  the  turmoils,  the  vast  destruc- 
tions of  other  races  and  continents  not  for 
us  or  for  our  people.  Waxing  fat,  we  begin 
to  dream  that  life  owes  us  comfort,  plenty, 
power,  ease.  This  is  the  devil's  lie.  Life 
owes  such  things  to  no  one — to  no  people. 
Remember  it  once  for  all,  no  nation  ever 
has  cheaply  obtained  these  things  which 
make  it  stable  and  great.  Comfort,  plenty, 
power,  ease,  self-control — these  ever,  always, 
are  only  the  reward  of  long  toil,  persistent 
endeavour  and  victorious  conquest  urged 
against  odds  that  seemed  overwhelming. 
Two  brief  struggles  we  have  had,  neither 
comparable  to  those  struggles  through  which 
other  peoples  have  passed.  Be  sure  that 
longer  and  more  protracted  ones  await  us. 
If  we  are  to  be  truly  great,  if  the  dross  is  to 
be  purified  from  the  pure  gold  of  our  life,  oh, 
be  very  sure  of  this,  the  plans  and  laws  of 
God  cannot  know  reversal  in  our  favour. 
No  favouring  clause  can  be  inserted  in  the 


50     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

divine  statutes  on  our  behalf.  We  must 
know  chastisement,  we  must  know  trial,  and 
through  these  we  must  win  our  way,  before, 
in  any  sense,  we  can  be  truly  stable  and 
great. 

Again,  I  think,  there  is  much  in  the  so- 
called  orthodox  religion  of  the  present  day 
that  makes  little  of  courage.  There  is  a 
tendency  to  discount  masculine  virtues, 
the  hardihood,  perseverance,  honest  pride 
and  love  of  work  that  belonged  to  the  gener- 
ations preceding  us.  These  are  not  dwelt  on 
as  they  should  be ;  these  are  not  sought  as 
they  deserve  to  be  sought.  Religion  is  too 
often  taught  as  a  thing  apart.  These 
masculine  virtues  are  in  danger  of  being 
neglected  in  our  religious  conceptions,  be- 
cause in  secular  life  they  are  in  danger  of 
being  neglected.  Prosperity  and  wealth 
are  sought  by  cunning,  craft,  clever  com- 
bination, lying  advertising  of  self,  unscrupu- 
lous manipulation  of  fellow  man;  above 
all,  by  tricky  laws  favourable  to  individuals 
or  groups  of  individuals.  Such  methods 
are  lauded  as  necessary  to  success.  And 
this  is  done  not  alone  by  those  without 
character   or   without   position.     The   most 


Courage  51 

successful  men  are  known  to  employ  these 
methods,  confess  that  they  employ  these 
methods  very  often;  and  orthodox  religion, 
sometimes,  at  least,  receives  their  con- 
science money  and  holds  its  tongue;  stands 
by  again  while  the  seamless  coat  of  God  is 
torn  into  parts,  and  while  men  who  even 
think  themselves  to  be  Christians  venture 
to  teach  and  to  practise  an  utter  atheism, 
real  and  sadly  effective  in  its  denial  of  God, 
however  unconscious  that  denial  may  be; 
a  denial  which  asserts  that  religion  is  one 
thing,  patriotism  another  thing,  and  busi- 
ness yet  another  thing. 

Ah !  there  is  no  room  for  courage  there, 
or  for  much  faith  either.  Religion  becomes 
flabby,  washy,  full  of  humbug,  and  valour 
gives  way  to  craft.  Men  don't  stand  up 
straight  before  their  fellow  men,  any  more 
than  they  stand  up  straight  before  their  God. 
Life's  balances  are  false,  life's  weights 
tricky.  Better  open  warfare  than  such 
damnable  deceit.  When  men  divorce  from 
their  religion  or  subordinate  in  their  religious 
thinking  such  simple,  straightforward  ideals 
which  we  call  masculine — hardihood,  per- 
severance, honest  pride,  love  of  work  and 


52     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

fairness  of  dealing  between  man  and  man — • 
religion  will  be  found  to  take  refuge  in  the 
hysterical,  and  then  men  and  women  read 
without  condemnation  such  gross  carica- 
tures on  religion  and  mankind,  on  both 
faith  and  courage,  as  you  find  in  the  popu- 
lar Hall  Caine's  "  Christian,"  which  is  mere 
rant  and  hysteria  from  one  cover  to  the 
other.  Its  faith  is  delusion,  its  courage 
that  of  a  Don  Quixote;  and  in  a  time  when 
knight  errantry  for  Christ  is  needed  as  much 
as  it  ever  was,  the  simple,  manly  Christianity 
which  has  won,  and  ever  will  command  the 
admiration  and  respect  of  sentient  beings, 
gradually  passes  from  the  field. 

Shall  we  be  discouraged  on  account  of 
these  things?  Far  from  it.  The  purposes 
of  God  are  sure.  Those  that  do  not  add 
valour  to  their  faith  will  fail  of  their  high 
calling.  Others  will  listen  to  the  calling 
they  refused,  will  take  up  the  tasks  they 
were  false  to,  win  the  victories  they  shrunk 
from,  and  at  last  stand  on  fairer  shores  and 
bathe  in  the  sunshine  of  a  clear  day.  This 
must  come,  for  the  nature  of  things  is  on 
the  side  of  faith  and  courage.  Think  with 
me,    for   a    moment,    how    certain   this   is. 


Courage  53 

God's  kindly  stern  old  nurse,  Nature,  man- 
ages to  harden  her  children  somehow.  She 
wears  a  stern  look  about  the  eyes,  but  in  her 
bosom  is  a  kindly  heart.  Omniscience  has 
set  her  to  her  task.  She  will  see  to  it  that  no 
race  succeeds,  no  children  brought  up  at  her 
knee  win  in  the  fight,  but  those  who  are 
capable  of  sustained  conflict.  Nature  has 
set  us  among  stormy  seas  and  under  gray 
skies,  given  us  to  till  a  weedy  earth,  a  long, 
exhausting  struggle  to  wage, — this  she  sets 
us  to,  and  all  for  a  divine  purpose.  Now  and 
then  her  children  forget  it;  but  rudely  she 
stirs  them  up.  Pain  is  here,  sore  sorrow 
and  disease,  separation  comes,  the  thwarting 
of  holiest  desire,  the  denial  of  loftiest  ambi- 
tion, the  inexplicable  things  of  life  are  ever 
present  with  us,  the  highest  and  truest 
prayers  of  the  soul  often  remain  unanswered. 
All  these  are,  as  it  were,  the  hands  of  Nature 
fastening  iron  armour  on  us,  whether  we 
will  or  not,  making  us  stand  when  we  want 
to  crawl,  making  us  mount  when  we  fain 
would  rest,  holding  us  in  life's  battle  line 
when  we  would  fain  shrink  back. 

But  look  away  from  Nature  for  a  moment. 
See  man  himself.    He  has  a  second  fight  on 


54     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

his  hands,  a  fight  for  his  very  soul,  a  fight 
to  which  the  first  fight  is  a  mere  skirmish. 
The  moral  nature  of  him  wrestles  for  its 
very  life  with  the  dormant  beast  within. 
He  comes  into  the  world  with  leaden 
weights  to  his  feet,  with  anchor  chains 
that  hold  him  to  the  mud  and  slime  of 
things;  and  weighted  and  tied  by  these,  he 
is  bidden  swim, — swim  in  a  salt  tide  that 
brims  to  his  very  lip,  swim  and  swim  against 
wave  and  current,  keep  swimming  when  he 
is  wearied  to  death, — if  he  would  ever  land 
on  a  far,  fair  shore.  The  battle  within  is 
a  battle  indeed  to  which  the  outward  strug- 
gle is  but  a  skirmish.  He  cannot  evade 
responsibility,  he  cannot  drift,  because 
choice,  all  momentous,  is  thrust  on  him, 
whether  he  will  or  will  not.  Opportunity 
bows  before  him,  but  he  must  grasp  her, 
grasp  her  quick  and  hold  her  firm — dally 
with  her,  she  is  gone.  Emotions  move 
him  tenderly,  sing  to  him  like  spring  birds 
till  he  hears  their  song  echoing  in  his  blood; 
but  he  must  transform  motions  into  action 
if  they  would  stay  with  him.  Action  must 
be  repeated  and  repeated,  and  then  at  last 
emotions  remain  and  crystallize  into  charac- 


Courage  55 

ter.  But  deal  with  them  only  occasionally, 
and  as  the  morning  cloud  they  vanish,  and 
as  the  evening  dew  they  pass  away.  And 
behind  them  they  leave  an  exhausted  life,  a 
cold,  barren,  burnt-out  life,  where  once 
dwelt  the  green,  odorous  possibilities  of 
fruitfulness. 

Therefore  let  us  take  courage.  But  let  us 
never  forget  that  the  nature  of  things  around 
us  and  the  nature  of  life  within  us,  both 
insist,  with  an  insistence  of  divine  pre- 
vision, that  if  we  would  live  and  prosper, 
we  must,  somehow,  add  to  our  faith  courage. 

And  lastly,  my  people,  what  sort  of 
courage  shall  we  have  ?  Oh !  to-day,  if 
ever,  we  see  the  need  of  a  courage  that 
recks  not  of  odds;  a  courage  that  is  deter- 
mined to  win  against  odds,  be  they  what 
they  may,  (I  don't  say,  mark  you,  does 
not  tremble  at  odds — the  very  highest  class 
of  courage  often  trembles) .  I  suppose  some 
of  you  remember  the  story  of  the  Peninsula 
officer,  a  man  of  undoubted  courage,  who 
happened  to  command  a  regiment  before 
he  had  ever  seen  service.  He  had  to  lead 
his  regiment  to  the  attack  of  a  heavy  line  of 
battle  and  against  a  superior  artillery.     As 


56     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

he  stood  in  front  of  the  long  Hne  of  his  men 
in  which  gaps  were  being  blown,  moment 
by  moment,  by  the  enemy's  guns,  the  men 
in  the  front  line  could  see  that  their  Colonel's 
knees  were  fairly  knocking  together,  and 
some  said  mockingly,  "See,  he  is  afraid!" 
But  there  were  those  who  knew  the  Colonel, 
and,  standing  near  him,  heard  him  talking 
to  himself,  and  this  is  what  he  said  as  he 
regarded  his  trembling  extremities,  "Oh, 
shake  away,  but  if  you  knew  where  I  was 
going  to  take  you,  you  would  give  way 
altogether." 

Yes,  the  courage  that  will  make  us  worthy 
of  our  opportunity  and  of  our  time  has  to  be 
a  courage  of  the  soul  as  well  as  of  the  limbs 
— the  courage  that  Bunyan  has  so  splen- 
didly described  in  the  doings  of  Mr,  Great 
Heart.  Great  Hearts  for  a  great  time — 
yes,  they  never  have  been  lacking.  No 
need  to  speak  of  the  past — God  has  not 
left  Himself  without  record  in  the  present. 
It  was  the  great  heart  of  Gordon  that  held 
for  so  long  Khartoum.  It  was  a  great 
heart  that  bore  Bishop  Hannington  into 
the  centre  of  blood-stained  Africa  and 
there  sustained  him,  till  he  fell  under  the 


Courage  57 

spears  of  those  he  came  to  save.  It  was  a 
great  heart  that  kept  Bishop  Patteson 
ever  cheerful  and  brave  in  his  lonely  mission 
to  the  far  Pacific  Islands,  till  on  their  sands 
he  gave  up  his  life.  It  was  a  great  heart 
that  spoke  in  F.  W.  Robertson  of  Brighton, 
till,  worn  out,  he  died  at  thirty-five,  the 
greatest  preacher  that  the  English  Church 
has  produced  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
yet  the  worst  abused  man  in  England.  It 
was  a  great  heart  that  enabled  Mazzini  to 
endure  his  self-appointed  exile  and  the 
calumny  and  scorn  of  those  who  should  be 
his  friends  and  allies. 

And  so  with  a  high  courage  fell  only 
yesterday  a  man  that  all  who  knew  loved 
and  delighted  to  honour — a  true  servant, 
a  true  lover  of  his  fellow  men — Henry 
George. 

True  prophets,  knight  errants  without 
shame  or  smutch — they  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  unknown  to  fame,  whose  work, 
known  and  unknown,  has  kept  the  world 
for  God  !  These  all  counted  odds  as  nothing, 
never  stopped  to  think  of  mere  reward  or 
human  favour,  for  they  knew  that  life 
could  not  be  gauged  by  these.     Mighty  for 


58     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

good  were  they,   because  courage  in  them 
went  with  faith. 

What  we  need,  to-day,  is  a  courage  that 
springs  from  trust,  trust  in  God  and  trust  in 
man.  If  you  trust  God,  you  must  trust 
man.  Just  as  if  you  really  loved  God,  you 
cannot  help  loving  men;  for  men  are  the 
crowning  result  of  creation,  of  redemption, 
of  salvation.  All  the  world  exists,  Christ 
and  all  the  martyrs  lived  and  died,  for  men. 
And  so  your  faith  in  God  is  a  sham  unless 
it  leads  you  to  faith  in  men,  as  your 
love  for  God  is  a  fraud  unless  it  makes 
you  love  men.  And  love  and  faith  in 
men,  and  love  and  faith  in  God,  must  ever 
go  hand  in  hand.  There  can  be  no  real 
progress  where  this  mutual  trust  does  not 
control  things.  And  so  I  say  to  you,  this 
morning,  be  brave  to  trust  men.  Look  for 
faith  in  men  and  you  will  find  it.  Look  for 
courage  in  man,  look  for  honesty  and  patriot- 
ism in  men  and  you  will  find  and  inspire  them. 
You  will  always  find  what  you  look  for — 
never  forget  that !  Look  for  the  mean  and 
the  small,  and  they  will  crawl  out  before 
your  eyes.  Look  for  the  great  and  the  fair, 
and  they  will  stimulate  you  and  cheer  you 


Courage  Sp 

on.  Oh !  let  us  trust  men  more,  for  Jesus 
trusted  men;  and  if  the  men  He  trusted 
first  crucified  Him,  never  forget  that  at  last 
they  crowned  Him. 

Let  us  be  brave,  then,  let  us  pray  to  be 
brave, — brave  for  our  great  land,  brave 
for  our  splendid  heritage  of  institution, 
brave  for  our  race's  sake.  Let  us  pray  to 
be  brave  against  odds,  brave  whether  the 
battle  seems  to  go  ill  or  well.  Victory  is 
the  General's  business — to  carry  ourselves 
like  men  is  ours.  We  have  nothing  to  do 
with  odds — our  simple  duty  is  to  hold  the 
ground  where  we  stand.  Oh  pray,  then, 
to  be  brave.  Look  around  the  world  and 
you  will  see  there  are  plenty  to  be  wise, 
plenty  to  be  prudent,  tactful,  cautious, — 
let  us  pray  to  be  valiant  for  His  truth  upon 
the  earth.  And  may  God  who  loves  a 
brave  heart  help  us  to  remember  that  at 
the  last — 

"  Only  the  Master  shall  praise  us, 
And  only  the  Master  shall  blame, 
And  no  man  shall  work  for  money, 
And  no  man  shall  work  for  fame; 
But  each  for  the  joy  of  working, 
Each  in  his  separate  star, 
Shall  draw  the  thing  as  he  sees  it 
For  the  God  of  things  as  they  are. " 

November,  1897. 


THERE  WRESTLED  A  MAN  WITH  HIM 

UNTIL  THE  BREAKING  OF 

THE  DAY 


"  There  wrestled  a  man  with  him  until  the  breaking 
of  the  day. 

"Thy  name  shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but 
Israel:  for  as  a  prince  hast  thou  power  with  God  and 
with  men,  and  hast  prevailed.  " — Genesis,  xxxii:  24,  28. 


We  misjudge  Jacob,  because  we  insist 
on  looking  at  him  as  though  he  were  a  man 
of  our  times,  as  though  his  standards  were 
our  standards.  As  a  fact,  he  was  a  man  of 
one  thing.  One  determination  ruled  his 
whole  life — to  win  for  his  posterity  the 
blessing  of  the  first-bom.  In  order  to  do 
so,  he  did  things  that  now  would  be  un- 
allowable; but  we  must  not  forget  to  look 
at  these  things  as  the  good  men  of  his  own 
time  would  have  looked  at  them.  Un- 
doubtedly, he  aimed  for  the  highest  he  saw, 
he  strove  for  the  holiest  he  knew,  and  God 
asks  no  man  to  do  more.  We  are  judged 
most  truly  by  our  own  people,  by  men  of 
our  own  race ;  and  Jacob's  own  people  finally 
concluded  to  give  him  the  place  of  a  prince. 
61 


62     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

He  was  one  of  those  few  whom  not  fate 
itself  availed  to  turn  from  his  purpose. 
Even  seemingly  divine  interposition  itself 
could  not  swerve  him.  Do  not  forget  that 
this  is  the  main  point  of  Jacob's  story.  It 
is  this  quality  in  Jacob's  character  that  gives 
him  a  rightful  place  among  the  immortals 
of  the  earth.  That  this  instinct  of  absolute 
devotion  to  what  a  man  feels  to  be  his 
highest  call  is  ever  the  voice  of  God,  we 
know  from  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ 
Himself.  These  specially  hardy  sons  of  His, 
God  loves,  and,  loving  them,  sends  severest 
trial,  allots  the  fiercest  struggles;  and  this 
because  they  are  His  chosen  ones.  It  was 
Christ  Himself  who  tried,  with  what  seems  a 
cruel  persistency,  the  faith  of  one  weak 
woman.  "It  is  not  meet,"  said  He,  "to 
take  the  children's  bread  and  cast  it  to  the 
dogs."  Her  unconquerable  faith  endures 
even  such  a  rebuke,  and  then  from  the  lips 
of  love  there  bursts  forth  an  appreciation, 
the  like  of  which  no  one  else  during  His 
earthly  pilgrimage  seemed  to  win  from  Him : 
"  O  woman,  great  is  thy  faith ;  be  it  unto  thee 
even  as  thou  wilt."  When  you  come  to 
think  of  it,   there  was  nothing  strange  in 


There  Wrestled  a  Man  63 

the  Lord's  so  dealing  with  that  faithful 
woman;  for  when  a  great  task  has  to  be 
achieved,  a  great  duty  done,  whom  do  we 
choose?  We  wisely  choose  our  bravest 
and  our  best;  on  them  we  lay  the  burden, 
and  to  them,  having  borne  it,  we  give  the 
praise. 

This  discipline  of  struggle  is  true  also  of 
nations  and  of  periods  as  well  as  of  indi- 
viduals. This  will  be  apparent  to  you,  if 
you  think  about  it.  The  great  ages  were 
not  the  easy  ages,  but  ages  in  which  the 
face  of  nature  seemed  dark  and  forbidding, 
times  in  which  men  went  forth  to  struggle 
and  discovery.  The  permanently  good 
things  that  come  to  mankind  are  not  those 
easily  won.  The  things  that  make  for 
deepest  peace,  abiding  happiness  in  us  all — 
these  are  not  the  result  of  plenty  merely, 
do  not  always  come  with  physical  comfort: 
we  only  win  them  by  persistent  strenuous- 
ness.  And  great  men  are  not  those  whose 
path  has  been  easy,  whose  burden  has  been 
light.  The  men  who  won  empire,  or  wrestled 
with  nature  for  her  deeply  hidden  secret, 
who  lived  to  produce  the  beautiful  and  the 
true  in  art  or  in  literature,  who  saw  fair  and 


64    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

clear  visions  of  a  higher  and  holier  society — ■ 
I  ask  you,  what  sort  of  lives  such  men  have 
lived  ?  Surely,  it  is  only  the  stupid  and  dull- 
eyed  who  persuade  themselves  that  the 
really  great,  good  and  far-seeing  men  of 
each  age  are  the  men  who  naturally  suc- 
ceed. It  is  only  the  degenerate  church  that 
thoughtlessly  cries  Amen  to  such  a  proposi- 
tion. The  Master  never  taught  so.  Ye 
shall  be  betrayed,  He  says,  by  parent  and 
kinsfolk  and  friends,  and  some  of  you  shall 
they  cause  to  be  put  to  death.  Ye  shall  be 
hated  of  all  men,  but  there  shall  not  a  hair 
of  your  head  perish.  Mark  it — loss  of  every- 
thing, but  the  real  self,  the  real  power; 
nothing  retained  beyond  that.  The  power 
from  the  living  God  to  reveal  to  their  times 
a  ''life'' — and  that  is  everything;  for  that 
is  the  most  beautiful,  harmonious,  abundant, 
divine  gift  that  men  can  hold  in  trust  for 
their  fellows. 

Why  have  I  thus  briefly  developed  for 
you,  my  people,  the  part  struggle  plays 
in  the  building  up  of  the  kingdom  of  God? 
Because  I  believe  God  has  called  us  to  new 
effort  and  new  trial  to-day.  New  ways 
and   tasks,    and    wrestlings   lie   before    us. 


There  Wrestled  a  Man  65 

The  prospect  of  them  has  dismayed  many. 
Many  true  and  good  men  are  cast  down, 
and  their  depression  has  found  frequent 
voice  most  prominently,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
in  some  of  our  time-honoured  pulpits. 
The  cry  of  discouragement  and  fear  arises 
not  from  the  poor  and  the  ignorant  men, 
but  from  the  educated  and  intelligent 
among  us,  from  men  to  whom  we  are  ac- 
customed to  look  for  words  of  soberness. 
They  tell  us  the  country  is  in  danger,  that 
a  new  policy  of  expansion  is  the  beginning 
of  the  end  of  her  story  of  greatness.  We 
are  proposing  to  ourselves  to  hold  colonies, 
have  dependencies,  rule  subject  peoples. 
Look  first  at  home,  they  cry.  See  how  we 
have  failed  there.  Listen  to  the  story  of 
race  riot  in  the  South,  see  the  pitiful  condi- 
tion of  the  Indian  in  the  West.  Note  the 
failure  of  municipal  government  every- 
where. Mark  the  shame  and  corruption  in 
State  legislation.  And,  remembering  all 
this,  what  madness  is  it,  they  cry,  to  accept 
new  responsibilities  and  place  on  our  shoul- 
ders new  burdens !  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
uncharitable,  but  it  is  my  firm  conviction 
that  such  an  attitude  of  mind  proves  these 


66    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

doleful  prophets  to  be  out  of  sympathy 
with  much  that  is  most  vitally  alive  in  our 
time. 

I  think  these  pessimists  have  failed  to 
note  the  great  advance  that  has  been 
made  by  our  people.  They  expect  a  highly 
developed  civilization  too  soon.  They  have 
not  carefully  marked  the  great  advance 
already  made.  When  I  turn  to  the  men 
who  know, — each  in  his  own  field, — what 
they  are  talking  about,  when  I  visit  the 
leaders  in  such  movements  as  are  repre- 
sented by  Hampton  and  Tuskegee — there 
I  find  hopefulness,  not  despair.  If  I  want 
to  note  the  progress  made  by  our  plain 
people,  I  give  up  a  month  to  study  those 
extraordinary  concourses  met  in  Chicago  a 
few  years  ago,  and  compare  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  there  assembled  with  similar 
great  gatherings  in  England  or  France.  If 
I  would  give  consideration  to  the  best  philo- 
sophical thought  of  the  time  on  the  ques- 
tion, I  listen  to  a  really  great  man  like 
Herbert  Spencer,  and  from  the  study  there 
sounds  a  voice  as  emphatically  hopeful  as 
from  the  schools  where  the  common  people 
meet.     The  great  synthetic  philosopher  is 


There  Wrestled  a  Man  67 

as  far  from  despair  as  the  coloured  genius 
of  Tuskegee. 

But,  these  doleful  prophets  of  to-day 
not  only  make  a  grave  mistake  in  their 
judgment  of  the  movements  around  them, 
but  it  seems  to  me  they  are  forgetful  of 
the  ascertained  laws  of  Cod.  What  do  I 
mean  by  the  ascertained  laws  of  God  ?  Let 
me  go  back  for  a  moment  to  make  my  mean- 
ing plain.  For  sake  of  argument,  admit 
those  correct  who  say  that  we  cannot  govern 
ourselves,  cannot  clean  our  streets,  cannot 
command  honesty  of  government  in  our 
legislatures,  have  not  as  yet  produced  a 
thoroughly  united  people.  Admit  it  all — 
what  are  we  going  to  do  about  it?  Leave 
theorizing  about  the  people,  and  look  at 
the  people  for  a  moment.  Does  any  man 
in  his  heart  of  hearts  really  believe  that 
the  masses  of  the  people  in  this  country 
are  more  ignorant,  dishonest,  impure,  less 
patriotic,  less  manly — worse  men,  in  short, 
than  are  the  people  composing  other  nations  ? 
Few  intelligent  men,  I  take  it,  will  be  found 
ready  to  say  this.  Then  on  your  own 
showing,  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  arouse  the 
good,  organize  the  good,  give  expression  to 


68     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

the  better  element,  and  then  we  will  com- 
pare not  unfavourably  with  other  people. 
How  are  we  to  arouse,  organize  and  educate 
this  waiting  good — suppress  virtue  of  the 
nation,  as  it  were?  I  say.  the  ascertained 
way  of  God  is  plain. 

Let  me  illustrate.  Men  are  not  by  nature 
cleanly.  Cleanliness  is  won  by  painfully 
slow  degrees.  The  everlasting  laws  of  life 
make  for  cleanliness,  and  so,  slowly,  the 
conviction  that  cleanliness  is  necessary, 
produced  a  habit  of  cleanliness.  But  men 
do  not  grow  cleanly  suddenly,  only  ac- 
quiring these  habits  of  cleanliness  through 
the  persistent  pimishments  which,  in  a 
thousand  ways,  uncleanliness  visits  upon 
them.  Now  I  challenge  you  to  show  me 
one  single  virtue  that  has  not  been  won 
in  the  same  way  that  we  have  won  a  measure 
of  cleanliness.  And  yet,  though  won  slowly, 
the  fight  with  uncleanliness  has  been  so  actu- 
ally won,  that  few  would  think,  to-day, 
of  cleanliness  being  a  virtue  at  all,  since 
it  is  gradually  being  esteemed  as  a  necessity. 

Now  for  my  application.  How  are  we  go- 
ing to  convince  the  inhabitants  of  our  great 
land  that  all  forms  of  corruption  which  I 


There  Wrestled  a  Man  69 

have  alluded  to,  and  which  I  deplore  as 
much  as  can  any  man, — -how  are  we  to 
convince  them  that  these  things  are  evil, 
not  only  in  themselves,  but  that  they  are 
ruinous  to  all  that  we  love  most,  and  threaten 
our  very  freedom  itself?  How  convince 
them  that  in  dealing  with  these  evils, 

"They  enslave  their  children's  children, 
Who  make  compromise  with  sin." 

I  say  again,  my  friends,  the  ascertained  laws 
of  God  only  point  to  one  way.  Bring  these 
deeds  to  the  light,  hold  them  up  to  the  day, 
name  them  for  what  they  are,  trusting  ever 
and  always  that  God  lives  in  the  hearts  of 
men,  and  that  in  the  end  when  they  see  and 
know,  men  will  choose  the  good  and  the 
fair,  rather  than  the  evil  and  the  foul.  That 
is  to  say,  the  bulk  of  men  will;  for,  in  the 
last  resort,  this  was  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
ever,  and  His  hopefulness  for  His  enemies 
lay  in  this — that  they  did  not  really  know 
what  they  did.  Ah,  bring  the  deeds  to  the 
light  and  have  no  fear;  for  the  inexorable 
law  of  God  working  in  the  atom  or  in  the 
planet,  compelling  the  crawling  of  the 
worm  or  the  thinking  of  the  philosopher, 


70    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

lighting  the  glow-worm's  tiny  lamp,  or 
flashing  in  the  planet's  fiery  glory — this 
inexorable  might  of  God  is  on  the  side  of 
purity,  liberty  and  truth. 

Now  perhaps  some  will  ask.  Why  is  it  that 
I  rejoice  in  the  expansion  of  our  land,  even 
though  that  expansion  comes  to  us  with 
added  burdens  and  most  unexpected  duties. 
I  admit  we  are  unprepared.  I  deplore  our 
lack  of  Civil  Service.  I  resent  the  ignorance 
and  conceit  that  makes  many  who  should 
be  strong  for  a  high  order  of  Civil  Service 
languid  or  opposed  to  it.  And  yet,  gauging, 
I  think,  our  weaknesses,  I  rejoice  in  this 
expansive  movement;  because  it  will  hale 
us  to  the  light,  because  we  can  no  longer 
hide  from  ourselves  or  from  the  world  the 
facts,  because  it  will  help  to  cast  down  in 
us  that  ignorant,  pharisaical  cry:  "Lord 
God,  we  thank  Thee  we  are  not  as  other 
men  are."  That  spirit  has  obtained  too 
long.  Now,  sirs,  our  works  are  to  be  mani- 
fested as  never  before.  The  world  is  to 
see  far  more  clearly  than  it  has  yet  seen, 
what  we  are.  Our  institutions  are  to  be 
tested  as  the  institutions  of  other  nations 
have  been  tested  and  tried.    The  real  inward- 


There  Wrestled  a  Man  71 

'ness  of  our  civilization  is  to  be  made  abund- 
antly plain  to  all  men,  as  they  watch  our  deal- 
ings with  our  dependencies.  We  have  pro- 
claimed in  the  face  of  the  whole  world,  that 
one  nation's  method  of  dealing  with  subject 
peoples  seems  to  us  so  utterly  barbarous 
that  we,  as  a  neighbourly  nation,  could 
tolerate  it  no  longer.  The  declaration  was 
honestly  made.  Now  the  world  is  to  see 
our  improvement  on  that  barbarous  method. 
Can  any  man  dream  that  it  would  have 
been  a  neighbourly  act  to  drive  Spain  out, 
and  then,  in  our  splendid  vessels  sailing 
away,  leave  defenceless  peoples  to  anarchy? 
I  remind  you  again,  as  I  did  months  ago, 
of  the  teachings  of  Jesus.  To  do  so,  I  say, 
would  have  been  accurately  to  copy  the 
example  of  those  who  left  the  wounded  man 
on  the  highroad  and  passed  by  on  the  other 
side.  It  would  have  been  to  earn  the 
curse  of  God  and  the  contempt  of  man- 
kind. 

No,  we  are  in  for  it, — and  I  thank  God — 
in  for  a  work,  in  for  the  discharge  of  a  long 
and  difficult  duty,  in  which  we  are  sure  to 
make  mistakes;  but  in  the  persistent  prose- 
cution of  which  we  shall  learn  to  know,  as 


72     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

never  before,  our  weak  spots,  our  strong 
spots,  and  our  real  selves.  For  a  time,  I 
say,  we  shall  make  mistakes.  I  fear  all 
our  appointments  will  not  be  like  those  of 
Colonel  Wood  in  Santiago ;  though  plenty  such 
men  could  be  found,  when  our  nation  calls 
for  them.  There  may  be  a  tendency  at 
first  to  treat  these  rich  islands,  these  un- 
happy and  ignorant  peoples,  as  a  further 
field  for  money-making,  but  if,  through 
negligence  or  ignorance  or  greed,  we  are 
so  unfaithful  to  our  trust,  the  sign  of  our 
shame  will  be  pinned  round  our  neck,  and 
we  stand  pilloried  before  the  nations.  There 
will  not  only  be  irritation  abroad  and  scorn- 
ful mocking,  but  I  tell  you  that  our  people 
at  home  will  be  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  intolerable  usurpation  that  the  love  of 
money  engenders.  They  will  see  our  na- 
tional vice  publicly  shame  us  in  the  eyes 
of  all  the  world. 

Oh,  my  friends,  what  does  the  Christian 
believe  in?  He  is  bound  to  believe  in  the 
cleansing  power  of  light.  Light  reveals, 
light  discloses,  washes,  restores,  revives 
and  cheers.  So  taught  Christ,  and  so, 
mark  me,   to  a  new  and   glorious  extent, 


There  Wrestled  a  Man  73 

the  light  of  truth  has  shone  for  the  healing 
of  the  nations.  In  the  criticism  of  mankind 
to-day,  there  is  a  new  assurance  of  safety 
and  of  health.  Yes,  there  is  renewed  hope 
in  it  for  the  weak,  new  admonition  for 
the  strong.  The  elder  nations  decayed  and 
failed  utterly — why?  Because  they  were 
shut  in,  as  it  were,  to  their  own  atmosphere. 
In  them  was  no  free  breath  of  international 
criticism.  They  breathed  their  own  vitiated 
air,  like  a  sick  man  sealed  up  with  his  sick- 
ness in  an  unventilated  room.  No  outside 
succour,  no  healing  medicine,  could  come 
to  the  sick  bed  of  the  nations  of  old  time. 
But,  to-day,  all  is  changed.  Who  can  over- 
estimate the  good  that  comes  to  a  people 
from  other  peoples?  The  sickness  of  one 
is  discussed  by  all,  and  touching,  even  as 
we  do  in  a  thousand  ways,  we  bring  to  each 
other  vitality,  life  and  health.  Aloofness, 
separateness,  are  not  a  gain,  but  a  great 
danger,  and  this  I  assert  in  spite  of  the 
pulpits  and  press. 

There  was  a  gnat  once,  its  life  was  limited 
to  one  summer  evening,  and  it  took  its 
airy  flight  just  as  the  summer  thunderstorm 
was  about  to  burst.     In  despair,  the  tiny 


74    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

insect  cried  to  its  fellow:  "Here  is  the  end 
of  the  world;  alas  for  all  its  beauty  and  its 
bloom  !"  But  the  flowers,  though  they  were 
only  flowers,  knew  better,  and  the  gardener 
knew  best — that  this  storm  was  what  he 
had  long  waited  for  through  days  of  parching 
heat  and  drought,  for  the  health  of  his 
garden  and  the  good  of  the  land.  Dark 
times  come.  What  of  that  ?  The  sun  reigns 
and  the  skies  shall  grow  serene  again. 
If  we  fail  for  a  time  under  new  duties,  it  is 
because  we  are  cherishing  and  hugging  to 
ourselves  old  sins;  and  new  duties  are  but 
God's  fair,  strenuous  messengers  to  show 
us  the  foulness  of  old  sins.  The  sin  of  our 
nation,  of  all  parts  of  our  nation,  is  as 
plain  as  plain  can  be.  It  is  slavish  obedience 
to  what  we  know  to  be  sin,  and  slavish 
obedience  alone,  that  can  make  us  seriously 
fail.  And  that  national  sin  is  the  one  Jesus 
warned  us  of.  He  and  His  apostles  told  us 
it  was  to  be  the  danger  of  a  later  time. 
It  was  the  overmastering  love  of  money,  and 
what  money  will  bring.  Let  good  men  teach 
that,  and  good  preachers  preach  that.  Let 
each  of  us  try  and  show  our  independence 
of  that  (and  mark  me,  if  we  do  this,  we  have 


There  Wrestled  a  Man  75 

our  work  cut  out  for  us,)  and  in  the  end 
God  will  accept  us,  and  men  shall  say  we 
saw  truly,  and  strove  well. 

December  5,  1898. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  GENESIS 

LABOUR   AND    REST 

"God  said." — Genesis  i:  j. 
"God  rested." — Genesis,  ii:  2. 

The  value  of  Genesis  lies  not  in  its  scien- 
tific accuracy.  It  is  God's  sketch  in  char- 
coal of  the  beginnings  of  things,  at  least 
the  beginnings  of  things  in  our  small  cor- 
ner of  His  great  field  of  spheres.  To 
suppose  that  here  in  Genesis  we  have  a 
scientifically  accurate  cosmogony  is  not 
only  unnecessary — it  is  absurd  as  it  would 
be  to  suppose  the  teacher  in  a  kindergarten 
school  commenced  the  mathematical  in- 
struction of  the  infants  by  propounding 
the  binomial  theorem.  We  have  all  that  is 
important  for  us  to  know  suggested,  and 
more  than  that  assured  to  us  when  we  read, 
"God  said." 

The  gospel  of  Genesis  is,  that  the  creation 
is  God's  word.  Now  what  are  words? 
77 


78    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Words  are  effort  after  self-expression.     The 
child  is  not  conscious  of  itself  until  it  speaks. 
Dawning    self-consciousness    and    dawning 
speech   go   together.     And   here   we   surely 
have  more  than  a  hint  of  the  everlasting 
word — the  word  of  God — if  we  may  so  say, 
the  eternal,  creative  property  of  God — His 
everlasting      effort      after      self-expression. 
When   before   the   inspired    vision   of   that 
prophet  to  whom  we  owe  the  first  chapters 
of  Genesis,  there  rose  this  marvellous  vision 
of  the  creative  plan  and  purpose  of  God,  he 
gave  to  his  own  and  after  times  then  these 
splendid    charcoal    outlines — not    the    final 
picture,   not  the  completed  work    (for  this 
men  were  not  ready  then) — of  understanding 
this    men    are    incapable    now.     But    here 
we   have,   with    splendid    distinctness,    the 
divinely    inspired    sketch    of     that     great 
panorama    picture    which    each    succeeding 
age   of   thinking,    studying,    believing   men 
are  to  do  something  to  enlarge  and  fill  up. 
Creation,    in   a   real   sense,    then,    is   God's 
word — His  word,  because  it  is  His  deed.  It 
expresses  Him,  as  the  fleshly  body  expresses 
the  soul  within  it. 

And  thus,  here  on  the  opening  page  of 


The  Gospel  of  Genesis.  79 

inspiration  is  clearly  seen  the  ground-work 
and  foundation  of  all  human  hope.  All 
that  is  is  God's,  and  despair  is  impossible  as 
long  as  this  is  believed.  Here  in  the  very- 
opening  page  of  inspiration  is  found  the 
warrant  of  those  strange,  quenchless  hopes 
and  yearnings  toward  the  infinite  life  that 
no  sin  in  man,  no  stress  of  circumstances,  no 
physical  or  moral  disaster  can  totally  de- 
stroy in  him,  or  rob  him  of.  Here  w^e  have 
in  sharp  and  unmistakable  outline,  that 
splendid  truth  that  lurks  dimly  seen  and 
mixed  with  much  error  in  all  forms  of  so- 
called  heathen  religious  thinking,  the  myth 
of  Antaeus  repeated  again — that  man  is  the 
son  of  God  and  the  son  of  earth,  the 
good  brown  earth  herself,  the  very  dust  He 
made.  And  so  let  human  falls  be  crushing 
as  they  may,  overthrown  manhood  rises 
from  the  bosom  of  his  mother,  with  strength 
miraculously  renewed,  to  continue  the  wrest- 
ling of  life.  Yes,  that  is  the  gospel  of 
Genesis.  There  is  divine  purpose  in  the 
very  dust.  This  is  the  good  news  of  creation. 
Creation  is  His  word.  And  all  its  creeping 
things,  as  well  as  its  angels,  its  serpents,  its 
trees  of  knowledge  both  of  good  and  evil 


8o     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  its  mystic  trees  of  life,  its  closing  para- 
dise doors  and  its  flaming  swords — all,  all, 
all,  very  good,  for  all  are  of  God.  Divinity 
itself  inspires  its  dust. 

But  here  someone  will  say  to  me,  "  How 
about  the  Fall?"  Let  me  frankly  reply,  I 
do  not  know  that  I  can  explain  it.  I  am 
prepared  to  accept  the  language  of  our 
Ninth  Article,  that  man  is  very  far  gone 
from  "original  righteousness,"  but  that 
that  original  righteousness  from  which  he 
is  very  far  gone  is  the  righteousness  of 
his  Original,  I  am  very  sure.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  Bible,  nor,  I  hold  it,  in  our 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  that,  thoroughly 
interpreted,  obliges  us  to  say  we  believe 
there  ever  was  a  time  when  men  were  better 
than  they  are  now,  ever  was  a  state  in 
which  they  were  possessed  of  a  righteous- 
ness superior  in  quality  to  that  they  are 
to-day  possessed  of.  Did  the  Bible  or 
Prayer  Book  say  this,  we  should  be 
obliged  to  reply  that,  in  so  far  as  such  a 
doctrine  was  taught  our  times  had  out- 
grown it,  for  that  in  successive  ages  we  had 
learned  to  apprehend  more  truly  man's 
essential   relationship   to   God,    and   under- 


,    The  Gospel  of  Genesis  8i 

standing  this  we  found  it  impossible  any 
longer  to  believe  that  in  the  heart  of  the 
race  divine  life  had  ebbed,  not  increased. 
Certainly  we  know  more  of  man's  relation- 
ship to  God  than  our  forefathers  did.  Cer- 
tainly the  all-inspiring  Spirit  has  enlight- 
ened us  on  this  and  on  other  points,  and 
man's  relationship  to  his  fellow  man  has 
become  a  completer  relationship.  It  is 
only  necessary  to  instance  the  change  of  all 
human  thought  in  relationship  to  such 
questions  as  slavery,  the  punishment  of 
prisoners,  the  relationship  of  the  sexes  and 
war,  to  make  this  evident  to  any  thinking 
man.  But  let  me  emphasize  the  fact,  that 
though  it  might  be  right  so  to  argue,  it  is 
not  necessary.  For  as  we  look  carefully  at 
our  Bibles,  certain  things,  I  think,  are  plain. 
First,  whatever  the  meaning  of  his  fall 
may  be,  it  is  evident  that  the  inspired 
writer  of  Genesis  held  that  man  was  abso- 
lutely one  with  nature — made  of  the  dust 
of  the  earth.  His  is  not  an  alien  lordship. 
He  is  the  head  and  crown  of  things,  but  he  is 
one  with  the  world  he  is  called  upon  to  rule. 
Her  cares  are  his  cares,  her  pains  his  pains. 
Among  her  thorns,  as  among  her  fruits,  he 


82    The    Reasonableness   of   Faith 

must  toil.  There  is  no  trace  of  absentee  land- 
lordism in  Genesis.  Her  last,  fairest  product 
he  is.  He  is  her  flower  as  much  as  her  master 
king.  To  lock  man  up  in  any  Garden 
Elysian  and  there  make  him  superior  to 
natural  law,  which  from  beginning  to  end 
of  the  Bible  we  see  is  divine  order,  would  be 
indeed  to  establish  a  vast  dualism,  would  be 
to  introduce  dissonance  in  the  imiverse — 
one  set  of  laws  for  all  nature  and  another 
set  for  man, — and  hopelessly  separate  nature 
and  humanity. 

Again,  once  outside  the  state  of  rest, 
outside  paradise,  with  perpetual  toil  before 
him,  here  it  is  he  gets  his  first  promise  of 
dominion — the  long  strife  will  be  crowned 
with  victory.  He  goes  forth  to  the  exercise 
of  his  highest  faculty — the  faculty  of  choice. 
All  nature  that  has  produced  him  has  known 
successive  births  and  known  them  only 
through  strife.  Every  point  she  has  gained 
has  been  gained  by  pain;  every  beautiful 
thing  she  has  produced  has  come  through 
travail.  This  law  is  divine  and  unchange- 
able, and  so  a  true  humanity  must  be  bom 
by  striving,  and  not  in  heaven,  earth  or 
hell,  can  there  be  escape  from  an  unchang- 


The  Gospel  of  Genesis  83 

ing  law.  We  talk  of  primal  innocence. 
Is  innocence  righteousness?  Were  inno- 
cence possible,  a  fall  would  be  a  necessary- 
moral  incident  in  the  development  of  the 
soul  through  innocence  to  righteousness. 
The  metal  in  the  mine  is  good  and  pure, 
and  we  might,  in  one  sense,  speak  of  it  as 
innocent;  but  the  metal  in  the  crucible  has 
a  purity  and  a  use  that  it  never  had  in  the 
vein.  Men  and  women  must  eat  of  the 
tree  of  good  and  evil,  for  in  no  other  way 
can  they  learn  to  love  the  good  and  hate 
the  evil.  And,  however,  to-day,  we  may 
recognize  the  fact  that  truths  such  as  these 
have  not  yet  found  their  best  and  com- 
pletest  expression  in  human  thinking,  that 
we  have  not  yet  been  able  to  correlate 
them  to  others  equally  precious  to  us,  we 
feel  and  know  them  to  be  true.  Our  hope 
and  belief  that  we  shall  yet  stand  unabashed 
before  the  vision  of  God  in  a  universe  of 
light  rests  absolutely  on  this  certainty, 
that  God  by  virtue  of  His  own  nature  of 
truth  and  love  can  never  seek  to  bring  out 
of  man  what  He  did  not  first  put  into  man, 
that  our  ultimate  evolution  towards  fitted- 
ness  for  glory  shall  be  uninterrupted  and 


84    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

certain,  because  we  believe  in  our  divine 
involution.  By  creation  He  placed  in  us 
the  properties  of  the  divine,  and  through 
His  infinite  mercy  and  wisdom  He  will 
draw  those  properties  forth  to  the  day. 
But  how  will  He  do  it?  Not  by  leaving  us 
basking  in  seductive  Capuas,  or  clothed  in. 
primal  innocence;  but  only  by  the  recurring 
discipline  of  age-long  struggle  towards  the 
light. 

But  yet  again,  friends,  is  not  the  best  ex- 
planation, after  all,  of  this  falling,  this 
early  catastrophe  that  overtook  our  par- 
ents— to  be  sought  in  life  itself?  Has 
not  every  man  and  woman  before  me, 
again  and  again,  known  what  it  was  to  be 
conscious  of  this  falling  only  when  it  was 
too  late  to  go  back  and  retrieve  it?  The 
doors  of  opportunity  lay  open  to  us,  but 
by  some  fatal  mesmerism  our  eyes  were 
holden  that  we  did  not  see  them  until  just 
before  they  closed.  A  chance  to  succeed, 
the  value  of  a  friend,  the  opportuntiy  to  do 
some  good — these  and  such  like  things  lay 
like  unused  treasure  under  our  hands  for 
weeks,  for  months,  for  years,  and  just  the 
one  instant  before  they  were  snatched  away 


The  Gospel  of  Genesis  85 

we  realized  what  might  have  been.  And 
then  the  gates  closed  behind  us  and  the 
flaming  sword  forever  barred  the  way. 
Those  mythical  doors  that  closed  on  the 
primal  pair  have  kept  closing  on  all  of  us, 
age  after  age,  since  then. 

Don't  many  of  you  remember  how  the 
doors  of  the  old  homestead  that  had  sheltered 
so  kindly  your  follies  and  witnessed  so 
many  of  your  joys— one  cold  day,  closed 
on  you  and  you  looked  your  last  on  them, 
and  looking,  could  scarcely  keep  down 
an  unmanly  tear?  And  a  few,  full  years 
pass  over,  and  before  you  realize  it 
those  dear,  historic  doors  of  the  college 
closed  behind  you,  and  you  looked  your 
last  on  the  windows  you  knew  so  well, 
every  one  of  which  seemed  to  frame  a 
kindly  face;  and  beyond  the  college  campus 
the  world  looked  cold  and  hard  and  un- 
inviting. Then  you  were  ushered  into  the 
big,  hungry,  selfish,  multitudinous  life  of 
utter  competition  which  men  call  the  world, 
and  when  you  got  your  breath  from  the 
cold  plimge  and  began  to  know  the  first 
delight  of  feeling  that  you  could  breast  its 
current  and  keep  your  head  above  it  with 


86     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

the  rest,  you  felt  that  you  knew,  in  some 
sort,  another  paradise,  and  so  you  did. 
But  the  sense  of  victory  in  life  did  not  last — 
ideals,  perhaps,  fell  away;  and  the  sordid- 
ness  of  much  of  it  and  the  meanness  was 
borne  home  on  you;  and  the  spectacle  of 
the  failure  of  others,  often  necessary  to 
your  own  success,  bore  hardly  on  you;  and 
contest  became  difficult  and  blows  rude; 
and  there  were  stumblings  in  the  mire, 
mire  that  would  cling  and  foul  and  would 
not  off — and  then  glimpses  of  open  doors 
and  Edens  of  possible  happiness;  and  look- 
ings  backward  and  yearnings  forward;  and 
dead  sea-fruits  that  grit  the  teeth  and  fall 
to  ashes;  and  sometimes  a  draught  of  living 
water,  too. 

Yes,  here  too,  doors  are  closing  and 
swords  still  bar  the  way  on  many  a  path 
which  you  would  fain  enter.  In  your  own 
intimate  life  the  same  law  held  good.  Sweet 
friendships  were  offered  to  you,  some 
bright  hopes  arose,  some  clear  vision  of 
service  grew,  and  love  was  given  and  in- 
spiration and  help.  But  still  it  was  not 
as  it  might  have  been.  And  the  friend  was 
never  quite  what  the  friend  might  be,  and 


The  Gospel  of  Genesis  87 

the  home  never  quite  what  the  home  should 
be,  and  the  service  never  all  that  service 
should  be,  and  so  much  was  unexplained,  and 
such  mistakes  were  made,  such  cruel  mis- 
takes, such  purblindness — taking  true  for 
false  and  false  for  true.  Yes,  that,  and  far 
more  than  that,  is  life.  And  yet  in  our 
best  and  clearest  hours  we  know  it  must  be 
so,  that  it  ought  to  be  so,  and  that  if  all  the 
barred  doors  were  thrown  open  to  us  again, 
and  the  opportunities  lost  and  moiuned 
over  recurred,  we  would  not  be  bettered 
thereby.  For  in  some  mysterious  way,  it 
is  only  through  the  closing  of  our  paradise 
gates,  only  through  the  sending  of  us  forth 
to  toil  and  often  to  failure,  we  can  hope  to 
do  anything  worthy  or  at  last  attain  our  rest. 
Surely,  I  am  right  in  saying,  that  the  best 
explanation  of  the  old  Genesis  story  of  man's 
moral  disaster  is  to  be  found  in  the  pages  of 
each  man's  life.  The  ultimate  meaning  of 
sin  and  evil  may,  as  yet,  elude  us,  but  we 
feel,  and  our  feelings,  our  institutions,  are 
our  best  guides,  that  there  must  at  last  be 

"Greater  good  because  of  evil, 
Wider  mercy  through  the  fall;" 

that    as    through    the    disobedience  of  one 


88    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

the  many  were  made  sinners,  so  by  the 
obedience  of  One  shall  the  many  be  made 
righteous.     Or  again,  to  quote  St.  Paul, 

"O,  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom 
and  knowledge  of  God  !  How  unsearchable  are  his 
judgments,  and  his  ways  past  finding  out ! 

"He  hath  concluded  them  all  in  unbelief,  that  he 
might  have  mercy  upon  all.  " 

Surely,  He  is  teaching  us  to  walk  as  a 
mother  teaches  her  baby.  See  her — there 
she  puts  it  against  the  steadiest  chair  or  sofa 
in  the  room  and  stretches  a  long  arm  on 
either  side,  and  by  language  all  of  her  own 
devising  she  wooes  it,  she  bids  it  come  to 
herself,  and  she  calls  that  walking.  Its  little 
toes  are  turned  in,  it  staggers  from  side  to 
side,  and  tumbles  first  against  one  arm  and 
then  against  the  other, — hear  her  de- 
lightedly say,  "It  walks!"  Such  are  our 
walkings,  such  are  our  fallings,  and  on 
either  side  lean  towards  us  the  everlasting 
arms. 

So  it  seems  to  me,  I  see  creation — God 
putting  His  creatures  a  little  way  away 
from  Him  that  they  may  come  to  Him — it 
is  not  a  long  distance  nor  yet  a  long  time, 
if  we  measure  by  the  ages, — and  then  com- 
manding us  to  come  to  His  breast.     On  the 


The  Gospel  of  Genesis  89 

way  there  He  has  promised  to  teach  us  how 
to  walk,  and  surely  He  will  not  have  done 
with  us,  till,  with  steady  stride,  we  shall 
march  by  our  Father's  side  up  glorious 
paths  of  being,  which  to-day  eye  hath  not 
seen  nor  ear  heard  tell  of. 

This,  so  far  as  I  can  see  it,  is  the  gospel  of 
creation,  as  in  charcoal  outlines  we  Ijave  it 
in  this  vision  of  the  seer.  It  is  creation's 
story,  a  story  of  a  past  lost  in  the  being 
of  God,  of  a  present  full  of  the  presence  of 
God,  and  a  future  glorious  beyond  all  powers 
of  human  thought  in  which  we  shall  know 
the  joy  of  God.  To  believe  and  accept  it  is 
already  to  taste  the  beginnings  of  a  rest, 
that  in  its  nature  is  akin  to  the  divine  rest 
we  read  of  in  this  creation.  God  looked 
over  His  work  and  from  its  lowest  to  its 
highest  saw  it  was  good  and  rested  therein. 
In  this  assurance  only  can  we  know  rest. 
Do  you  remember  what  Goethe  sang  about 
rest? 

"  Rest  is  not  quitting  the  busy  career, 
Rest  is  the  fitting  of  self  to  its  sphere. " 

Other  races  and  times  have  sought  this 
rest  by  quitting  rather  than  by  fitting, 
and  so  it  was  the  deserts  were  dotted  with 


90    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

monasteries  and  thousands  of  recluses  peo- 
pled the  Thebaid.  To  our  race  and  to  our 
time  is  revealed  a  wiser  and  a  truer  rest — 
something,  as  I  have  tried  to  say,  akin  to 
God's  rest  in  creation.  A  rest  that  may  lie 
at  the  "heart  of  boundless"  agitation,"  as 
Wordsworth  well  knew.  A  rest  that  is 
based  on  the  knowledge  that  God  is  before 
all  things,  and  by  Him  all  things  are  held 
together,  that  He  is  the  all  in  all. 

"Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ? 
Shall  tribulation,  or  distress,  or  persecution,  or  famine, 
or  nakedness,  or  peril,  or  sword  ? 

"Nay,  in  all  these  things  we  are  more  than  con- 
querors through  him  that  loved  us. 

"  For  I  am  persuaded,  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor 
angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  powers,  nor  things 
present,  nor  things  to  come, 

"Nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature, 
shall  be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God, 
which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.  " 

God  before  it  all,  God  in  it  all,  God  above 
it  all,  God  beyond  it  all. 

•    March,  1891. 


HARVARD  BACCALAUREATE 

JUNE,     1893. 

"Not  looking  each  of  you  to  his  own  things,  but 
each  of  you  also  to  the  things  of  others.  Have  this 
mind  in  you,  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus:  who, 
being  in  the  form  of  God,  counted  it  not  a  prize  to  be 
on  an  equality  with  God,  but  emptied  himself,  taking 
the  form  of  a  servant,  being  made  in  the  likeness  of 
men;  and  being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  he  humbled 
himself,  becoming  obedient  even  unto  death,  yea, 
the  death  of  the  cross.  Wherefore  also  God  highly 
exalted  him,  and  gave  unto  him  the  name  which  is 
above  every  name;  that  in  the  name  of  Jesus  every 
knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven  and  things  on 
earth  and  things  under  the  earth,  and  that  every 
tongue  should  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord,  to 
the  glory  of  God  the  Father." — Philippians,  ii:  4-1 1. 

In  these  verses,  St.  Paul's  meaning  is 
unmistakable.  They  sum  up  too,  it  seems, 
much  of  his  maturer  teaching.  The  ques- 
tion which  some  of  us  are  in  doubt 
about  to-day  is,  Is  it  possible  to  accept  a 
rule  of  life  so  difficult,  so  simple?  Sur- 
rounded as  we  are  by  temptations,  con- 
scious as  we  are  of  a  pitiful  mixture  of  motive, 
is  it  possible  for  us  in  any  real  sense  to  yield 
practical  obedience  to  these  most  searching 
91 


92     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  comprehensive  commands  ?  Look  stead- 
ily, says  the  apostle,  with  purposefulness, 
with  honest  intention,  not  on  your  own 
affairs  only,  but  on  the  things  of  others. 
Look  as  you  would  look  when  pursuing 
your  own  interests,  wisely,  bravely;  not 
merely  as  you  study  a  problem,  but  as  you 
plan  an  enterprise.  Look  on  the  things  of 
others,  and,  as  you  look,  let  Christ's  very 
mind  be  yours;  look  as  He  looked.  The 
prize  of  life  He  could  have  grasped;  He 
sought  it  not  for  Himself.  All  the  powers 
of  an  extraordinary  manhood  were  His;  He 
stripped  Himself  of  them  and  voluntarily 
forewent  His  own  legitimate  advantage.  He 
stooped  to  weakness  when  He  need  not  have 
stooped.  He  was  willing  to  die  and  met  death 
in  its  most  awful  shape;  turning  to  death, 
agony  and  defeat,  choosing  these  deliberately 
as  His  portion  sooner  than  give  up  His  high 
purpose  of  saving  His  fellow  men.  This 
deliberate  mode  of  action  ruling  all  His 
life  and  finally  consummated  by  His  death, 
Paul  declares  the  infinite  God  accepts  and 
crowns,  and,  so  accepting  and  crowning  it, 
declares  it  to  be  the  one  supreme,  final, 
permanent,  victorious  form  of  life  forever. 


Harvard  Baccalaureate  93 

This  indisputably  is  St.  Paul's  meaning.  This 
is  Christianity,  and  the  mind  of  Christ  as  He 
understood  it,  preached  it,  and  died  for  it. 
Is  this  mind  of  Christ  possible  to  us  to-day  ? 
There  is  very  much  in  the  every-day  life  of 
us  all  which  seems,  at  a  superficial  glance, 
to  deny  the  practicability  of  living  after  this 
high  standard.  We  need  the  stimulus  of 
competition.  This  is  not  lacking  even  in 
our  college  days.  You  are  feeling  what  you 
believe  to  be  its  legitimate  influence  now. 
You  are  gathering  the  results,  in  these  last, 
few,  crowded,  exciting  weeks  of  your  Uni- 
versity life,  of  a  series  of  competitions,  in 
which  you  have  engaged  during  all  the  course 
of  it;  and  you  feel  that  in  the  stimulus  of 
reasonable  competition  there  is  real  good. 
Yet  if  you  look  at  this  college  life  of  yours 
at  all  searchingly,  you  are  soon  aware  that 
competition  forms  a  very  small  part  of  its 
life.  Its  main  value  lies  far  away  from  mere 
advantages  of  competition.  Its  chief  gains 
are  not  to  be  won  in  any  game  of  grab. 
Rather  it  is  in  coming  to  understand  your 
own  life,  winning  invaluable  opportunities 
to  study  men  of  like  purposes  and  yet  dif- 
ferent capacities  from  your  own,  and  in  the 


94     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

leisurely  associating  with  so  much  that  is 
best  and  stimulating  in  American  life  and 
scholarship,  that  the  main  good  of  it  all  lies. 
And  as  from  the  college  walls,  in  an  occa- 
sional thoughtful  hour,  you  look  towards 
the  future,  you  have  felt  again  that  com- 
petition as  a  rule  of  life  with  one's  fellow  is, 
after  all,  a  semi-barbarous  law  and  that, 
when  needful,  it  bears  to  the  generous  spirit 
pretty  much  the  same  relation  that  the 
stinging  spur  does  to  the  thoroughbred's  flank. 
By  itself,  it  never  won  a  great  race  yet.  The 
best  blood  scarcely  acknowledges  it. 

Thus,  brothers,  as  we  look  within  and 
then  without,  we  are  gradually  aware  that 
in  a  strange  and  wonderful  way  the  mind 
of  Christ  is  growing  on  men.  Though  some- 
times disheartened  and  downcast,  we  seem 
to  see  in  life  just  the  same  sordidness  and 
cruelty  that  used  to  rule  it  long  agC;  we  are 
aware  that  such  a  state  of  mind  is  more  or 
less  coloured  by  passing  mood  or  feeling 
and  is  not  borne  out  by  fact.  The  studies 
of  these  past  years  ought  to  have  done 
something  to  convince  you  that  there  is  a 
tide  in  the  affairs  of  men,  a  tide  of  pity,  an 
earnest,   self-sacrificing  interest,   that   flows 


Harvard  Baccalaureate  95 

and  ebbs  not.  More  thoughtfully,  more 
considerately,  man  looks  on  the  life  of  his 
fellow.  Our  forefathers  played  the  game 
of  grab  so  remorselessly,  we  ourselves  are 
so  often  keenly  set  at  it,  that  a  life  without 
strife,  an  existence  in  which  competition  in 
a  thousand  forms  and  shapes  does  not  play 
a  prominent  part,  is  hard,  nay,  almost  im- 
possible for  us  to  conceive.  We  are  so 
wedded  to  ideas  of  contention  and  competi- 
tion that  any  other  conditions  than  those 
springing  from  these  are  well-nigh  incon- 
ceivable to  us. 

And  yet  his  life  is  poor  and  narrow  indeed, 
who  has  not  been  blest  by  some  vision  of  an 
existence  in  which  love  casts  out  strife; 
some  limited  sphere  of  life,  at  least,  in  which 
competition  and  strife  are  not.  It  is  pos- 
sible for  the  poorest  of  us,  possible  for  a 
very  imperfect  character  to  love  some  one 
with  such  a  love,  that  into  his  relations  with 
that  person  competition  and  strife  cannot 
enter.  For  this  loved  one  we  forego  our 
own  advantage  with  delight.  For  the  sake 
of  such  to  suffer  is  as  natural  a  thing  as  to 
breathe.  Further  than  this,  if  we  look 
around  us  thoughtfully,  we  must  be  aware 


96    The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

that  man's  sphere  of  love  is  ever  widening; 
that  widening  interests  bring  men  more 
and  more  together.  Warmer  ties  are  gaining 
strength  surely,  if  slowly.  Man  is  no  longer 
cut  off  from  man  as  he  used  to  be.  Life 
overlaps  life.  The  hard,  high  walls  of 
prejudice  and  caste,  of  difference  in  fortune, 
and  even  in  nation,  no  longer  serve  to  sepa- 
rate men  altogether  from  each  other  as  they 
used  to  do. 

Look  backward  for  the  space  of  a  few 
generations  only,  and  you  see  the  best  men, 
the  wisest,  the  most  cultivated,  incompre- 
hensibly callous  to  the  wants  and  woes  of 
those  near  them,  untouched  by  the  feeling 
of  their  infirmity,  unmoved  by  their  bitterest 
cry.  Some  two  years  ago,  I  happened  to 
spend  two  weeks  of  Spring  weather  in  the 
ancient  City  of  Nuremberg.  There,  almost 
untouched  of  our  modern  life,  stands  that 
wonderful  city.  In  its  courts  and  palaces, 
in  its  narrow  streets  and  splendid  churches, 
the  very  spirit  of  mediaevalism  seems  to 
have  found  its  last  retreat.  There  is  scarcely 
a  finer  hall  in  Europe  than  that  splendid 
council  chamber  in  which  Nuremberg's  great 
citizens,    successful  merchants  and  valiant 


Harvard   Baccalaureate  97 

captains,  took  counsel  for  peace  and  for 
war.  Around  that  banqueting  hall,  bla- 
zoned on  its  walls,  is  the  tale  of  Nurem- 
berg's greatness.  There  the  great  fresco 
speaks  of  her  past  life  and  glory,  her  wealth, 
her  power,  her  independence,  her  artistic 
genius.  And,  in  the  most  natural  way, 
mingled  with  this  record  is  the  story  of  her 
unconscious  cruelty,  too.  The  tale  of  tor- 
tured criminal  stands  written  on  the  wall 
as  plainly  as  the  glory  of  the  lordly  mer- 
chant. With  equal  truth  they  are  drawn 
side  by  side.  As  you  stand  in  the  hall, 
the  golden  light  falling  through  wide  win- 
dows, rich  in  glass,  it  is  easy  to  think  your- 
self back  to  the  time  when  what  was  richest, 
wisest,  fairest,  bravest  and  best  in  that 
central  city  of  Europe,  met  and  feasted 
where  now  you  stand.  But  what  another 
story  is  hidden  beneath  the  great  stone 
floor !  Go  down  a  few  feet,  and  there  for 
your  inspection  open  up  whole  rows  of 
cells.  Oh,  such  cells !  Noisome,  dank,  un- 
penetrated  by  a  single  sun-ray.  There  in 
darkness,  utter  and  profound,  men,  and 
women  too,  were  imprisoned,  tortured,  put 
to  death;  while  a  foot  above  their  heads, 


98     The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

the  solid  stone  shutting  out  all  sound  of 
revelry  from  above  or  of  wail  from  below, 
the  great  citizens  feasted  and  drank,  planned 
wars  and  discussed  commerce. 

Could  such  things  be  to-day?  We  smile 
at  the  idea;  it  is  an  insult  to  imagine  it 
possible.  And  yet  those  men  and  women 
that  feasted  were  not  specially  bad  men 
and  women;  nor  did  those  poor  wretches 
who  suffered  beneath  own  often  to  any  sin 
worse  than  misfortune.  Why  has  the 
former  state  of  things  passed  away?  I 
tell  you,  brothers,  there  is  but  one  reason — 
'tis  the  advance  of  the  tide  of  the  mind  of 
Christ.  Year  by  year,  it  seemed  to  those 
who  watched  it  to  ebb  as  often  as  to  flow. 
Slowly,  very  slowly,  it  rose  on  the  sands, 
and  as  each  watcher  failed  at  his  post,  his 
testimony  as  to  its  rising  was  all  too  im- 
certain  to  assure  him  who  took  his  place. 
But  there  was  no  ebb  for  all  that. 


'For  while  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking, 

Seem  here  no  painful  inch  to  gain, 
Far  back,  through  creeks  and  inlets  making, 
Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main. 

'And  not  by  eastern  windows  only, 

When  daylight  comes,  comes  in  the  light; 
In  front,  the  sun  climbs  slow, — how  slowly ! 
But  westward,  look,  the  land  is  bright. " 


Harvard   Baccalaureate  99 

But,  brothers,  it  is  rising  still.  I  tell  you 
the  time  will  come — I  believe  it  is  near  at 
hand — when  it  will  be  as  impossible  for 
men  and  women  to  live  as  at  present  the^'' 
are  living  in  the  broad  and  beautiful  houses 
of  our  great  cities,  surrounding  themselves 
there  by  all  the  rich  gifts  and  bounty  of 
life,  while  close  to  them  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  their  fellow  citizens  are  shut  down 
within  the  pestiferous  narrowness  of  the 
tenement  house.  It  will  be  as  impossible 
for  things  which  exist  to-day  to  con- 
tinue to  exist  side  by  side  in  our  cities 
and  land,  as  it  would  be  to  fill  Nurem- 
berg's broad  hall  at  this  close  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  with  feasting  citizens,  while 
her  dvmgeons  beneath  were  choked  with 
the  victims  of  her  torture.  Yes,  love  is 
casting  out  strife,  is  taking  the  bitterness 
out  of  competition.  Love  recognizes  to-day, 
as  she  never  did  before,  misfortune  as  es- 
tablishing a  claim  on  fortime,  and  sorrow 
and  suffering  as  pleas  from  which  an  hon- 
ourable man  must  never  turn  away,  if  he 
would  hope  for  the  favour  not  only  of  a 
merciful  God  for  himself,  but  of  his  own 
justifying  conscience 


loo  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

And  again,  I  ask,  Why  is  this  ?  It  is  be- 
cause the  mind  of  Christ  is  increasingly 
becoming  a  power  among  men.  But  as  I 
seek  to  set  before  you,  this  day,  the  reason- 
ableness and  certainty  and  coming  preva- 
lence of  this  mind  of  Christ,  I  shall  be  ac- 
cused of  sentimentalism.  The  plea  I  make, 
you  say,  is  sentimental.  Is  it  so  ?  Brothers, 
I  would  have  you  remember  that  it  is  not 
the  voice  of  religion  alone  that  calls  you 
to-day  to  make  the  mind  of  Christ  a  power 
in  your  own  lives  and  in  the  world.  What 
science  to-day,  in  the  interest  she  excites 
and  in  the  splendid  triumphs  she  has  won, 
takes  more  prominent  place  than  does 
physiology  in  all  her  branches?  We  might 
call  her  the  regnant  science  to-day.  It 
requires  little  more  than  a  knowledge  of  first 
principles  of  physiology  to  assure  ourselves 
that  this  youngest  of  all  the  sciences  calls 
on  those  who  follow  her  deliberately  to 
accept  self-sacrifice  as  their  law.  Some- 
what heady  with  her  own  intoxicating 
success,  she  stands  before  the  world  to-day. 
"Listen  to  me,"  she  seems  to  say,  "let  me 
speak.  I  may  be  the  youngest  in  the  class, 
but   I   have   something  most  important  to 


Harvard   Baccalaureate         ioi 

say. "  And  when  she  does  tell  of  her  own 
things,  with  a  captivating  vigour  of  youth 
and  enthusiasm  cast  around  her,  what 
is  the  burden  of  her  testimony?  Invol- 
untary sacrifice  in  the  lowest  orders  of 
life — voluntary  sacrifice  in  the  highest  forms 
of  life.  This  her  testimony,  her  message, 
her  gospel.  In  these  highest  she  calls  it 
altruism.  'Tis  really  the  mind  of  Christ, 
without  as  yet  its  assurance  of  exaltation 
and  ultimate  triumph.  "You,"  she  cries 
to  those  who  listen  to  her — "you  are  the 
result  of  age-long  processes  of  sacrifice; 
fall  in  with  the  law  that  made  you  what  you 
are.  Let  this  mind  be  in  you:  forego  your 
own  advantage  and,  doing  so,  win  your 
highest  life." 

Or,  listen  with  me  for  a  moment  to  another 
voice  of  weight,  that  in  no  sense  claims  to 
be  religious.  This  teacher,  too,  has  the 
confidence  of  youth,  of  youth  renewed  at 
least.  She  tells  us  that  we  are  only  begin- 
ning to  understand  how  to  place  together 
in  their  proper  order  and  sequence  the 
lessons  of  history.  "In  physics,"  she  cries, 
"you  have  fixed  laws,  laws  by  which  you 
can  judge  certainly  of  nature's  sequences. 


I02  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

By  these  the  tides  rise  and  fall,  the  winds 
come  and  go,  light  follows  darkness,  and 
the  glory  of  the  Spring,  the  rigour  of  the 
Winter.  To  the  aid  of  these  and  the  con- 
duct of  them  the  will  of  man  is  not  necessary. 
Seed-time  and  harvest,  day  and  night, 
snow  and  heat.  Summer  and  Winter,  shall 
not  fail.  But  in  the  conduct  of  his  own 
affairs,  it  is  vitally  necessary  that  he  take 
into  his  consideration  the  property  and 
responsibility  of  his  own  will.  Nature  mates 
herself  to  that  will.  She  aids  man  so  long 
as  he  struggles.  She  is  to  him  a  sturdy 
helpmeet.  But  she  will  not  live  with  him 
as  a  sloven.  She  will  marry  him,  but  not 
slave  for  him.  If  he  neglect  her,  she  with- 
draws her  forces,  her  vital  warmth,  from 
him.  Whether  it  is  an  individual  or  a 
generation  of  individuals,  this  is  true  of 
man's  relations  to  her.  She  will  give  man 
no  assurance  of  faithfulness  on  her  part, 
and  permanent  support  springing  from  that 
faithfulness,  if  he  continue  faithless  to  her. 
She  will  help  her  mate,  man,  to  prepare  for 
each  generation  a  more  favourable  en- 
vironment in  some  respects  than  the  pre- 
vious generation  had.     Intellectually,  mor- 


Harvard  Baccalaureate         103 

ally,  the  atmosphere,  the  environment, 
may  be  more  favourable.  But  let  that 
generation,  thus  kindly  greeted  and  pro- 
vided for  by  nature,  fail  of  its  duty,  cease 
to  do  its  part,  be  lacking  in  some  essential 
requirement,  and  the  higher  platform  to 
which  it  has  been  lifted  serves  but  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  a  more  disastrous  and 
irremediable  fall.  The  comparative  study 
of  history  makes  it  abundantly  evident 
to  the  student  to-day  that  each  generation 
can  do  no  more  for  its  successor  than  pro- 
vide it  with  a  stout  platform  on  which  to 
battle  out  its  own  destiny,  wrestle  for  its 
life,  prove  its  own  worthiness  to  exist,  save 
its  own  soul  from  the  death. 

At  first  sight,  there  seems  little  that 
favours  the  Christ  mind  in  the  conclusions 
of  historic  science.  Look  a  little  closer  and 
you  will  see  that  this  is  not  so.  The  very 
essence  of  that  mind  is  willingness  for  the 
good  of  others  to  forego  its  own  legitimate 
advantage.  When  first  a  few,  ignorant 
and  weak  men,  dared  to  proclaim  such 
mind  as  the  final  type  of  human  mind,  what 
state  of  things  were  they  confronted  with? 
There  was  spread  all  over  the  known  world 


I04  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

a  civilization  marvellous  in  its  success. 
Seemingly,  it  was  established  forever.  It 
had  founded  itself  on  the  ruin  of  all  previous 
civilizations.  It  had  borrowed  from  their 
experiences;  it  had  been  warned  by  their 
failures.  Its  rule  seemed  as  eternal  as  the 
hills  of  its  own  city.  And  why?  Men 
great  and  small,  old  men  and  children,  had 
lived,  planned,  toiled,  fought,  and  been 
willing  to  die  for  Rome.  And  cemented 
with  the  blood  of  her  children,  Rome  stood 
forth  steadily  and  strong  beyond  compare. 
She  rose,  flourished  and  blessed  mankind. 
But  Rome  grew  rich  and  wanton;  both 
rich  and  poor  alike  sunk  into  selfishness. 
The  poor  cried  only  for  bread  and  pleasure, 
and  the  rich  for  pleasure  and  power;  and 
so  the  crash  of  it  all  soon  came.  For  Rome 
was  but  the  husk  of  herself.  She  had 
turned  to  her  muck-heap,  and  forgotten 
the  glory  of  her  early  crown.  The  fair 
became  foul,  the  wife  a  wanton,  justice  was 
sold,  honour  fled,  the  mind  of  Christ  openly 
scoffed  at.  She  fell  and  her  fall  was  great. 
Innocent  and  guilty  fell  together,  for  the 
hope  of  mankind  had  been  betrayed  by 
Rome.     On   her  wreck   and   ruin,    after   a 


Harvard   Baccalaureate         105 

time  of  doubt  and  dismay,  larger  founda- 
tions of  liberty  and  hope  for  mankind  arose. 
For  in  Frank,  Goth  and  Visigoth,  and  in 
all  the  so-called  wave  of  barbarism  which 
had  swept  over  her,  possibilities  of  higher 
life  were  existent  which  were  no  longer 
possible  to  her.  On  these  Christianity  took 
hold.  These  were  the  stock  of  the  Christian 
graft.  Nations  cannot  live  who  refuse  and 
contemn  the  law  revealed  in  the  mind  of 
Christ.  This  is  the  verdict  of  history  as  it 
is  of  physiology. 

And  now  turn  very  briefly  with  me  to  the 
definitely  religious  side  of  this  question; 
and  be  patient  for  a  few  moments  while  I 
try  to  point  out  to  you  what  the  best  life 
in  the  Christian  Church  to-day  is  doing  to 
try  and  commend  to  men  the  mind  of 
Christ.  The  Church's  conservatism  seems 
to  many  of  you  blind,  unreasonable  and 
intolerant.  Yet  this  is  not  altogether  a 
fair  attitude  for  any  intelligent  man,  even 
though  he  be  an  unbeliever,  to  take  to 
organized  Christianity  to-day.  Whether  she 
knows  it  or  not,  the  Church  stands  for  the 
whole  of  humanity,  and  must  shape  her 
formulas  and  teaching  for  the  whole,  and 


io6  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

not  for  part.  That  which  stands  for  the 
culture  and  thought  of  our  people,  as  Har- 
vard University  pre-eminently  does,  is  surely 
apt  to  forget  this,  in  so  far  as  we  demand 
too  great  or  too  sudden  an  amount  of  change 
in  the  forms  of  speech  which  have  enshrined, 
niore  or  less  effectually,  so  much  that  has 
been  vital  in  the  past.  Men  are  conserva- 
tive on  the  religious  side  of  their  nature, 
because  it  is  of  supreme  value  to  them.  If, 
on  some  sides  of  us,  we  are  of  necessity 
radical  in  changes  we  call  for  and  advocate; 
on  other  sides,  we  are  sure  to  be  concomi- 
tantly conservative. 

And  so,  to-day,  Christianity  is  labouring 
to  express  the  law  and  mind  of  Christ  in 
terms  that  are  too  often  uncouth  and  un- 
satisfactory. It  is  not  because  men  have 
ceased  to  believe  in  sacrifice,  but  because 
Christian  men  too  often  seek  to  describe  it 
in  terms  that  are  grotesquely  out  of  date, 
that  the  whole  Christian  system  of  sacrifice 
seems  so  unreal  to  those  who  stand  outside, 
and  sometimes  to  those  who  hesitatingly 
stand  inside  the  Church.  Our  terminology 
belongs  to  a  time  when  men's  highest  idea 
of  sacrifice  manifested  itself  in  the  shambles, 


Harvard   Baccalaureate         107 

when  lowing  herds  and  bloody  altar-steps 
were  men's  highest  conceptions  of  the  wor- 
ship of  God.  Terms  that  fitted  those  times 
will  not  convey  the  sacrificial  ideas  of  the 
present.  Yet  men  in  those  days  thought 
of  sacrifice  as  an  occasional  necessity.  Now 
we  know  it  as  a  vital  and  changeless  law. 
When  we  speak  of  the  dying  of  Jesus,  link- 
ing it  with  such  terms  as  justification,  ex- 
piation, atonement,  imputed  righteousness, 
transferred  sin,  etc.,  we  are  using  terms 
once  full  of  blessed  meaning,  because  they 
conveyed  fittingly  the  highest  thought  of 
which  the  religious  mind  of  that  time  was 
capable ;  but  now  they  veil  from  the  minds 
of  multitudes  the  real  significance  of  that 
dying. 

As  St.  Paul,  in  the  passage  I  have  read  to 
you,  brings  it  before  us,  it  is  as  fresh  and 
full  of  meaning  for  us  to-day  as  it  ever  was. 
The  Saviour,  whom  St.  Paul  speaks  of  as 
crowned  with  everlasting  glory  and  before 
whose  august  feet  all  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  do  bow  and  obey,  sits  on  the  throne 
of  His  universe  not  by  favour  but  by  right. 
He  is  exalted,  because  He  alone  has  ex- 
plained and   vindicated   the  universal  law. 


io8  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

The  whole  universe,  animate  and  inanimate, 
bends  in  homage  to  Him,  because  He  has 
made  glorious  its  own  supreme  law — the 
law  of  sacrifice  and  of  service.  Through  all 
the  dark  and  vaporous  gray  ages  of  the 
past,  that  law  has  slowly  worked  out  its 
painful  processes.  It  has  been  sobbed  in 
the  universe,  ages  before  it  was  revealed 
on  the  cross  of  Christ.  This  is  the  force  of 
St.  Paul's  "Wherefore."  Who  shall  justify 
to  the  universe  her  sorrow,  toil,  pain,  dying. 
Who  shall  stand  and  explain  her  long,  long 
travail  pang?  Man  and  only  man.  Only 
a  Man-Child  glorious  can  pay  the  poor  earth 
back  for  her  long,  drawn-out  travail  pang. 
Without  man,  nature  is  inexplicable.  And 
man  stands  confused  before  himself,  im- 
certain  of  whence  he  came  and  whither  he 
goes,  incapable  of  explaining  and  justifying 
what  he  is  and  what  he  wants  to  be  to  him- 
self, till  the  highest  Man  stands  before  him 
and  says:  "I  am  the  way,  the  truth  and 
the  life.  No  man  cometh  to  the  Father 
but  by  me.  See  in  me  the  explanation  of 
all  that  you  see  and  feel  and  hope  for  in 
yourself." 

"  Therefore  God  hath  highly  exalted  him. " 


Harvard   Baccalaureate         109 

The  life  of  Christ  is  the  final  type,  and 
therefore  no  other  life  can  be  exalted. 
There  can  be  no  two  victorious  types.  The 
final  life  must  be  the  fitted  life.  The  un- 
fitted must  cease  to  be.  The  life  that  lives 
in  its  true  relations — -to  permit  any  other 
life  than  this  to  survive  would  be  to  undo 
what  the  ages  have  been  doing;  would  be 
to  reverse  the  law  by  which  the  lower  die 
that  the  higher  may  flourish.  God  Himself 
cannot  make  a  world  in  which  the  saurian 
exists  side  by  side  with  man.  Saurians  are 
best  possible  forms  of  life  at  one  stage,  yet 
impossible  at  the  next.  The  conditions  of 
the  saurian  are  the  conditions  of  the  car- 
boniferous age;  these  would  but  choke  and 
strangle  the  man.  To  persist  in  conditions 
is  the  meaning  of  sin.  A  imiverse  favourable 
to  the  highest  must  of  necessity  be  less 
favourable  to  that  which  is  not  so  high. 
The  mind  of  Christ  and  the  selfish  spirit  of 
self-seeking  cannot  finally  co-exist.  Which 
is  it  to  be  in  us,  brothers?  After  which 
mind  shall  we  live  ? 

So  let  me  conclude  as  I  began.  All  that 
this  old  University  life  stands  for,  these 
friendships    made,    these    halycon    days   in 


no  The   Reasonableness   of   Faith 

which  are  so  deHghtfully  mingled  the  spring 
and  zest  of  boyhood,  with  the  growing  sense 
of  power  that  belongs  to  early  manhood — 
all  can  avail  you  but  little,  if  the  chief  value 
of  them  you  let  slip,  if  the  abiding  result 
of  them  is  not  found  with  you.  That  result 
should  be  a  deeper  knowledge  than  is  possi- 
ble to  others  who  have  not  had  your  ad- 
vantages— a  knowledge  of  what  goes  to 
make  manhood  worthy,  and  true  living 
possible.  Your  outlook  on  life  should  surely 
be  not  less  sympathetic  than  that  of  other 
men,  because  of  these  splendid  opportuni- 
ties that  you  have  enjoyed.  It  is  men  the 
hour  calls  for,  men  who  know  themselves 
to  have  a  mission,  and  who  can  and  will  turn 
away  from  all  other  prizes  to  win  that  one 
life  prize;  from  all  other  siren  voices,  to 
listen  to  that  "  one  clear  call  for  me. " 

Oh,  my  brothers,  you  come  not  here  to 
complete  your  life  studies;  but  to  fit  your- 
selves to  pursue  them.  The  study  you  have 
known  here  has,  if  it  be  worth  anything, 
cost  you  something.  The  study  that  awaits 
you  in  the  great  world  will  surely  cost  you 
more.  "Look  not  on  your  own  things" — 
not  to  your  own  aggrandizement,  nor  the 


Harvard   Baccalaureate         m 

building  of  your  fortune — but  look  on  men, 
and  you  will  learn  to  know  them  a  little, 
and,  as  you  know,  to  love  them  more. 
Pursue  pleasure  and  it  will  pall  on  you. 
Give  your  soul  up  to  toil,  and  work  will  be- 
come some  day  unendurable.  But  the  man 
who  gives  out  his  best  to  his  fellow  is  never 
utterly  cast  down  or  disheartened.  No 
numbering  cares  can  quite  paralyze  the 
reverent  student  of  men.  Falls  and  fail- 
ures he  may  make;  but  from  them  all,  like 
the  fabled  Antaeus  of  old,  he  will  rise  re- 
freshed, for  he  has  touched  his  fellow. 
"Look  not  on  your  own  things,"  and  you 
will  learn  to  love,  love  with  a  discriminating 
hopefulness  that  rises  above  all  disappoint- 
ments, and  year  by  year  discovers  promise 
of  a  life  that  is  worth  living. 

I  have  visited  all  the  cities  and  all  the 
states  in  this  great  land  of  ours;  but  from 
out  them  all,  to  my  mind,  one  building 
stands  pre-eminently  beautiful  and  eloquent. 
'Tis  that  Memorial  Hall  yonder.  It  tells 
the  story  of  a  college  generation,  that 
earnestly  looked  on  the  things  of  others. 
It  tells  the  story  of  brave  deeds  following 
that    persistent    looking.     They    had    their 


112  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

hour,  those  men  of  thirty  years  ago,  and 
they  heard  their  call.  A  golden  haze  of 
distance  already  hangs  on  that  past  time 
to  us.  It  seems  to  us  very  glorious,  but 
also  very  simple,  very  easy.  They  could 
not  have  done  other  than  they  did.  Ah, 
that  is  how  problems  of  one  age  always 
look  to  the  next.  It  did  not  seem  so  to 
them.  Partings  had  to  be  made,  preju- 
dices met,  and  deep  questionings  answered ; 
yet  out  of  them  all  they  passed  triumph- 
ant. They  did  their  duty,  suffered  and 
died  many  of  them  before  they  knew  they 
had  won.  How?  What  mind  was  theirs 
in  that  momentous  hour,  in  those  desperate 
years  of  civil  strife?  It  was  the  law  of 
sacrifice,  it  was  the  mind  of  Christ.  The 
cause  was  man's,  the  end  his  salvation; 
and  the  means,  the  only  means,  sacrifice. 
Man  never  could  be,  never  can  be,  saved 
by  any  other.  If  you  would  save  him,  you 
must  die  for  him. 

Have  not  many  of  you  often  looked  on 
those  monuments,  and  wished  with  all  your 
hearts  that  a  duty  as  simple  and  direct  was 
yours  to-day;  that  you,  too,  could  hear  a 
voice  that  called,  and  know  it  to  be  divine. 


Harvard   Baccalaureate         113 

But  uncertainty  surrounds  you,  checks  you, 
benumbs  you.  'Tis  hard  to  find  the  truth, 
hard  to  know  what  to  do.  On  sociological 
questions  we  are  at  sea;  on  theological,  we 
are  divided ;  on  political,  we  sometimes 
fiercely  differ.  We  often  feel  deeply  with 
Matthew  Arnold: 


"  But  now  the  old  is  out  of  date. 

The  new  is  not  yet  born." 


Brothers,  as  your  chosen  preacher,  feel- 
ing the  solemnity  of  this  occasion,  one 
that  cannot  recur  in  my  life  or  yours  again, 
I  call  on  you,  by  all  that  is  highest  and 
holiest,  all  that  in  your  own  nature  answers 
and  echoes  God — I  call  on  you  to  put  before 
you  as  an  end  and  object  in  your  life  the 
knowledge  of  men.  Do  this  now,  do  it  faith- 
fully. More  light  and  a  clearer  call  shall 
be  yours  by  and  by.  Look  earnestly  not 
on  your  own  things,  but  on  the  things  of 
others.  Look  on  man,  God's  last  and  high- 
est work,  and  in  that  work  you  will  learn  to 
see  and  reverence  divine  purpose.  Give 
men  your  mind,  give  them  your  hand,  and 
you  cannot  in  time  withhold  your  heart. 
KJnow  the  ignorant  to  teach  them.     Know 


ii4  The   Reasonableness    of   Faith 

the  weak  to  help  them.  Those  who  are 
out  of  the  way,  to  lead  them  back.  Oh, 
get  to  know  the  boys  in  the  great  cities  and 
share  with  them  some  of  those  priceless 
advantages  that  have  enlarged  your  life. 
Know  the  wounded  to  heal  them,  the  sorrow- 
ing to  comfort  them.  ICnow  the  sinful  to  for- 
give and  save  them.  Only  set  yourselves 
by  the  help  of  God — as  a  life-long  purpose 
set  it  before  you,  cost  what  it  may;  sacrifice 
time,  self-interest,  ambition  and  fortune  to 
it — set  yourselves,  I  say,  to  know  men;  and 
you  have  laid  the  foundation  for  a  life  that 
cannot  fail  and  a  hope  that  shall  not  be 
disappointed.  Know  men,  and  I  have  the 
authority  of  the  Highest  for  saying,  that  if 
in  this  reverent  spirit  you  seek  to  know  men, 
you  shall  at  last  stand  unrebuked,  accepted 
by  the  Son  of  Man. 


LOVE  NOT  THE  WORLD 


"Love  not  the  world,  neither  the  things  that  are  in 
the  world.  If  any  man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the 
Father  is  not  in  him. 

"For  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  and 
the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  Ufe,  is  not  of  the 
Father,  but  is  of  the  world. 

' '  And  the  world  passeth  away,  and  the  lust  thereof. — 
/  John,  it,  /5,  i6,  ly. 


Friends,  we  need  Lent.  Sick  with  its 
hurry,  its  divided  aims,  we  need  to  take 
such  opportunities  as  are  given  us  for  self- 
explanation,  for  quiet  searching  into  the 
root  of  the  needs  and  purposes  of  our  lives. 
If  we  neglect  such  opportunities,  we  suffer 
from  the  absence  in  our  lives  of  the  habit  of 
thought,  of  self -search,  which  is  essential 
to  proper  conduct.  If  any  age  falls  from 
such  habit,  then  pain,  friction,  loss,  incapac- 
ity are  soon  seen;  and  the  issues  are  not 
doubtful.  If  the  gentle  and  slow  processes 
by  which  we  were  intended  to  grow  are  not 
sufficient,  then,  just  as  in  nature,  the  Divine 
Order   provides   for   us   shock   and   storm. 

115 


ii6  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

If  the  persuasive  heat  does  not  bring  out 
the  life  of  the  chick,  a  rude  blow  from  out- 
side must  crack  the  shell  that  no  longer  is 
its  wise  guard,  but  henceforth  is  its  tin- 
necessary  prison-house.  And  just  so  with 
the  affairs  of  men — for  this  is  what  the 
apostle  is  speaking  of  here.  When  we  fall 
into  the  way  of  living  without  consideration, 
and  acting  without  self -concentration  (which 
alone  must  lead  to  fruitful  action) ,  then  the 
result  is  that  we  are  bound  by  circumstances, 
we  are  blind  to  duty,  we  are  confined — to 
use  the  words  of  the  text — by  a  present 
order,  and  oblivious  to  the  need  of  change 
of  order. 

For,  after  all,  that  is  the  meaning  of  this 
idea  of  the  world,  as  the  text  distinctly  in- 
dicates. The  world  is  the  present  order, 
an  order  that  changes  and  whose  every 
change  is  purposeful;  but  an  order  that 
exists,  not  for  itself,  but  for  what  comes 
after  it.  An  order  like  the  strata — line 
upon  line,  each  necessary  to  what  will  follow ; 
but  each  not  only  useless,  but  positively 
hurtful,  if  it  be  an  end  and  finality  in  itself. 
"  Love  not  the  world  " — when  the  apostle  uses 
the  term  he  means:     Do  not  get  bound  up 


Love   not   the   World  117 

in  a  present  order  whatever  that  order  may 
be,  for  the  order  changes  and  can  only  fulfil 
itself  in  changing. 

Indeed,  there  can  be  no  possible  doubt 
about  the  effect  on  character  of  loving  the 
present  order — for  what  is  loving?  Loving 
is  a  world  within  a  world.  Loving  is  a  prop- 
erty and  a  quality  which,  if  on  one  side 
it  touches  what  belongs  to  this  order,  on 
the  other  side  it  opens  its  windows  towards 
heaven  and  the  everlasting  day.  Loving  is 
the  highest  bliss,  the  sorest  agony,  the 
supremest  responsibility  of  mankind.  Now, 
friends — and  I  ask  you  as  wise  men  to  judge 
what  I  say — there  is  no  doubt  to-day  that 
mere  propinquity  with  a  thing  influences  life ; 
that  mere  juxtaposition  with  a  thing  creates 
a  likeness  to  the  thing;  that  life  contains 
within  it  a  property  of  imitation  so  strong, 
so  pervasive,  that  the  very  animals  take 
the  colouring  of  their  surrounding — in  the 
white  North,  bird  and  beast  are  white;  in 
the  gorgeous  colouring  of  the  tropics  bird 
and  beast  put  on  the  striped  and  glistening 
raiment  of  forest  and  jungle. 

So  in  the  higher  life,  we  have  to  do  with  a 
force  that  is  not  expressed  in  mere  touch, 


ii8  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

propinquity  of  environment;  but  when  we 
call  into  exercise,  O  men  and  women,  that 
supremest  power  of  all  that  belongs  to  our- 
selves alone — the  power  of  loving — then 
we  are  not  only  subject  to  the  ordinary 
force  which  makes  us  like  the  thing  we  touch 
and  with  which  we  mingle;  but  just  so  soon 
as  you  let  that  strange  and  divine  power 
of  loving  within  you  go  forth,  you  capture 
what  you  love  and  it  captures  you ;  you  feed 
on  what  you  love  and  it  feeds  on  you ;  you 
assimilate  what  you  love  and  it  assimilates 
you,  until  at  last,  my  brother,  you  produce 
and  reproduce  what  you  love,  and  it  again 
reproduces  itself  good  or  bad  in  you.  Modem 
man  is  accurately,  scientifically,  what  he 
loves.  His  love  limits  him,  his  love  ex- 
presses him,  his  love  saves  him,  his  love 
damns  him,  his  love  is  his  salvation,  his  love 
is  his  judgment  eternal,  and  his  love  is  his 
perdition  eternal.  To  love  is  to  be  abso- 
lutely part  and  parcel  of  and  to  yield  one's 
self  ultimately  to  what  we  love. 

We  must  truly  confess  to  each  other  that 
if  we  love  the  present  order,  are  satisfied 
with  the  present  order,  give  up  the  whole 
strength   and   virility   of   our   manhood   to 


Love  not  the  World  119 

maintain  the  present  order — the  simple 
philosophy  of  it  is  not  to  be  mistaken, 
friends,— then  you  might  as  well  expect  a 
fish  to  turn  into  a  lap-dog,  as  for  us  to  be- 
come beings  who  successfully  express  the 
wondrous  idealism  which  Jesus  Christ  re- 
veals to  man  as  man's  possibility,  as  his 
divine  high-calling.  I  ask  you  to  test 
yourselves  by  these  unmistakable  and  in- 
controvertible truths,  and  ask  yourselves 
if  this  be  not  so. 

Love  not  the  world,  then,  neither  the 
things  that  are  in  the  world;  for  if  any  man 
love  the  present  order  in  this  sense,  he  is 
absolutely  putting  himself  out  of  count 
with  the  order  that  is  to  be.  Still  further. 
If  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  effect  of  lov- 
ing this  order,  there  is  also  no  doubt  what- 
ever about  the  doom  of  this  order.  When 
Jesus  spoke  these  words  through  His  Spirit, 
everything  seemed  firm  and  certain  on  earth. 
The  Roman  Empire  was  superb  in  its  legis- 
lation, magnificent  in  its  civilization.  Here 
were  fools  and  blind  calling  out  against  this 
order  and  declaring  that  it  was  passing  away, 
that  the  worm  was  already  eating  its  way  into 
the  tap-root  of  the  gourd,  and  all  the  beauty 


I20  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  strength  of  Rome  was  crumbling  to  its 
irrevocable  fall.  How  impossible  it  seemed  1 
How  true  it  was  !  Ah  !  that  is  the  law  of  the 
world.  You  cannot  convince  any  generation 
that  the  thing  it  holds  to  is  departing.  It  is 
only  the  man  that  lives  near  the  heart  of 
God  that  sees  it.  And  I  do  not  care  whether 
he  be  a  scientist  and  thinks  he  does  not  believe 
the  creed,  or  a  Christian — if  he  is  in  touch 
with  the  heart  of  things  he  knows  that 
the  whole  order  is  passing  away,  and 
only  lives  as  it  gives  birth  to  the 
babies  of  the  order  that  is  to  be. 
There  are  things  we  love  in  it  because 
they  have  satisfied  us;  there  are  things  we 
almost  worship  in  it  because  they  have 
expressed  us;  things  in  it  very  precious  to 
us  on  account  of  these  associations.  But 
remember  how  wonderfully  true  it  is — the 
very  things  in  one  generation  for  which 
men  have  gladly  poured  out  their  life- 
blood  are  accepted  almost  thoughtlessly  as 
the  axioms  of  the  next.  The  inspiring 
dreams  and  visions  of  the  one  time  are 
regarded  as  commonplace  by  the  times  suc- 
ceeding them.  The  achievements  of  one 
age  are  like  the  toys  of  children,  cast  into 


Love   not  the   World  121 

some  musty  comer,  broken  and  played  out. 
You  may  make  museums  of  men's  aims,  and 
men  wonder,  to-day,  that  they  ever  could 
be  satisfied  with  things  they  sought  at  the 
cost  of  life  itself. 

Rich  with  the  storied  experiences  of  the 
eighteen  hundred  years  that  have  passed 
since  then,  the  words  come  to  us  to-day — 
"  Love  not  the  world,  neither  the  things  of 
the  world,  for  the  world  passeth  away. " 
The  word  of  God  endureth  forever.  Faith 
says,  "No  doubt,"  and  what  does  it  mean? 
It  means  that  beyond  the  changing,  beyond 
the  imperfect,  beyond  the  temporary,  there 
is  the  changeless,  the  perfect,  the  eternal. 
What  do  you  mean  by  the  changeless  ?  Not 
stagnation — God  forbid  !  Not  mere  rest — 
God  forefend  !  But  beyond  the  present  and 
temporal  there  faith  hopes  and  believes 
doth  spread  a  life  in  which  these  awful 
breaks,  these  overwhelming  experiences,  shall 
have  performed  their  function  and  shall 
have  been  buried  among  the  things  that  are 
no  more — death  and  pain,  and  sorrow  and 
crying,  having  fulfilled  their  educational 
work,  are  no  more.  He  that  doeth  the  word 
of  God,  abideth  forever.     Why  do  we  say  it  ? 


122  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Because  we  long  for  it,  because  we  feel  it. 
The  slow  worm  with  a  rudimentary  eye 
looks  round  it.  It  sees  what  it  needs,  it 
feeds  on  what  it  sees,  and  its  eye  is  satisfied 
with  the  seeing.  The  eagle  with  an  eye 
miraculously  developed,  when  compared 
with  the  worm,  looks  around  him  and 
sees  what  he  needs  and  feeds  on  what  he 
sees,  and  his  eye  is  satisfied  with  the  seeing. 
Do  you  remember  the  sublime  line  in  Job : — 

"There  is  a  path  which  no  fowl  knoweth,  and  which 
the  vulture's  eye  hath  not  seen." 

And  this  strange  and  wonderful  spiral  is 
the  path  of  man.  Man  sees  what  he 
needs  and  feeds  on  what  he  sees,  but  the 
eye  is  not  satisfied  with  seeing  nor  the  ear 
with  hearing — for  within  him  is  the  spark  of 
the  everlasting  order  that  refuses  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  shards  of  time. 

Therefore  again  sounding  through  all  the 
ages  comes  the  entreaty  of  God — oh,  my 
child,  give  thyself  not — bom  for  eternity — ■ 
to  the  order  of  the  temporal.  Live  in  it  you 
must,  and  love  it  you  should,  but  not  in  the 
sense  of  your  yielding  yourself  up  to  it  in 
whole-hearted  surrender.  For,  oh !  let  this 
fasten    itself    in    your    mind — nothing   can 


Love   not   the   World  123 

change  the  law  of  God.  What  you  love,  you 
are.  You  assimilate  it,  you  are  like  it.  We  go 
into  the  far  country,  and  though  the  infinite 
love  of  God  again  and  again  brings  life 
from  that  country  of  death,  beloved,  there 
may  come  a  time  when  in  the  far  country 
there  sounds  no  echo  of  the  Father's  voice, 
for  the  very  sonship  of  the  son  is  dead 
therein;  he  has  loved  the  swine,  and  like 
the  swine  he  has  become.  He  has  loved  the 
citizens  of  that  land,  and  one  of  them  he  has 
become.  The  food,  the  husks,  the  company, 
the  environment  of  the  low  have  sucked  him 
down  and  lowered  him,  and  its  vampires 
have  drained  his  life  blood.  And  all  that 
infinite  mercy  itself  can  do  for  him  is  to 
apportion  him  a  sleep  that  knows  no  awaken- 
ing, for  the  far  country  with  its  lusts  and  its 
husks  and  its  swine  and  its  citizens  has 
passed,  and  left  nothing  behind.  For  the 
world  is  only  the  bed  where  God  grew  His 
flowers,  and  when  it  could  grow  flowers  no 
more  its  doom  and  its  glory  alike  are  sounded 
forth  in  the  decree — "  Behold  !  I  make  all 
things  new. " 

March  18,  1894. 


THE  EYES  OF  THE  HEART. 

"The  eyes  of  the  heart  being  enUghtened." 

Eph.,  i:  i8. 

It  is  Palm  Sunday  to-day.  We  celebrate 
the  King  coming  to  His  own.  On  the  Sun- 
days lately  past,  I  have  tried  with  you  to 
take  a  glance  at  the  nature  of  His  kingdom. 
Last  Sunday  we  studied  its  method — the 
method  of  the  leaven,  which  a  woman  hid 
in  three  measures  of  meal  till  the  whole  was 
leavened,  the  yeast  of  His  truth  permeating 
all  deeds  and  thoughts  of  men  till  life  is 
occupied  and  blessed  with  good.  Can  such 
vast  hopes  be  ever  realized?  Are  they 
anything  but  iridescent  dreams? 

There  is  a  way.  And  here  in  this  beauti- 
ful line  I  have  read  to  you,  St.  Paul  points 
it  out;  only  one  way  to  know  about  it  all, 
only  one  way  to  judge  of  it  at  all.  That  is 
by  the  use  of  the  eyes  of  the  heart,  the  eyes 
of  your  heart  being  enlightened.  It  is  given 
to  men,  sinful  men  though  they  be,  to  see 
125 


126  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

at  times  visions  of  coming  good,  to  catch 
glimpses  of  the  celestial  city,  and  know  the 
tabernacle  of  God  is  at  last  to  be  with  men. 
Such  hope  and  vision,  yes,  more  than  this, 
was  given  to  him.  The  most  holy  men,  the 
most  lonely  men,  yea,  the  Lord  Himself,  had 
such  times.  "We  would  like  to  have  been 
with  Him  then. " 

I  think  it  is  well  to  remember  that  Jesus 
was  not  always  sad.  All  the  great  pictures 
of  Him  are  pictures  done  in  tones  of  sadness, 
and  the  reason  of  course  is  plain.  For  the 
age  when  great  religious  art  flourished  was 
an  age  of  pre-eminent  sadness.  Those  times 
were  very  ill.  Lust,  vile  ambition,  deeds  of 
cruel  violence  reigned  on  all  hands,  and  men 
turned  from  what  was  bestial  in  the  times 
to  the  visions  of  Him;  and  His  face  would 
seem  to  them  to  be  a  face  more  marred  than 
any  man's.  He  was  the  Man  of  Sorrows 
and  acquainted  with  grief.  Such  a  Lord 
they  needed.  Therefore  it  was  such  a  Lord 
they  saw.  But  Jesus  could  not  have  been 
ever  so.  At  the  marriage  feast,  in  the  corn- 
field, when  He  drew  the  little  children  to 
His  knee,  He  surely  could  not  have  been  the 
Man  of  Sorrows ;  a  great  joy  must  have  been 


The   Eyes   of   the   Heart         127 

His  then.  More  than  that,  we  read  that 
He  rejoiced  in  spirit.  And  I  believe  some 
coming  day,  when  men's  thought  shall  have 
risen  beyond  the  shadows  that  oppress  them, 
when  the  vast  perplexities  that  now  weigh 
us  so  heavily  down  shall  have  passed  away, 
some  great  artist  of  some  coming  time  may 
paint,  perhaps  for  another  generation,  a 
different  sort  of  Christ  face — a  face  suffused 
with  a  transforming  joy.  We  are  right  so 
to  think  of  Him,  to-day  when  we  watch 
Him  approaching  the  greatest  tragedy 
of  our  race,  as  resolutely  He  moved  for- 
ward to  be  the  central  figure  in  the 
darkest  crime  of  history,  the  supremest 
misunderstanding  of  man  by  his  fellowman — 
the  greatest  murder  of  all  time.  The  end 
is  clearly  seen.  The  shadows  grow  to  utter 
blackness.  Full  well  He  knows  it  all.  But 
it  is  as  He  approaches  them  He  celebrates 
His  solitary  triumph,  and  lets  His  disciples 
at  last  shout  to  their  heart's  content  His 
praises  as  He  enters  the  city  on  Palm 
Sunday.  We  want  to  see  the  whole  of  Him, 
look  at  all  His  life,  catch  its  full  meaning, 
and  understand  His  joy  as  well  as  His 
passion,  so  we  may  more  fully  obey. 


128  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

How  shall  we  do  it?  Here  is  the  only- 
way.  The  greatest  witness  He  ever  had, 
His  greatest  apostle  and  lieutenant,  the 
man  whose  inspired  genius  gave  Christ  the 
Gentile  world — it  is  St.  Paul  speaks.  "If 
you  would  understand  Him,  if  you  would 
follow  Him,  if  you  would  adore  Him,  you 
must  do  it  as  the  faithful  few  in  the  multi- 
tudes did  that  day,  by  using  the  eyes  of 
your  heart;  look  at  Jesus  with  the  eyes  of 
your  heart."  That  is  St.  Paul's  plea— the 
logical  Paul,  clear- thinker  he.  This  man 
who  sees  as  no  other  man  sees  the  evil  and 
good  of  his  day.  He  pleads  for  the  use  of 
the  eyes  of  the  heart.  What  are  they? 
We  glory  in  the  use  of  the  eyes  of  the  head. 
We  are  apt,  thoughtlessly,  to  depreciate 
the  use  of  those  other  eyes,  especially  so 
to-day.  For  men  are  using  the  eyes  of  the 
head  as  never  before  they  did.  They  have 
won,  as  it  were,  telescopic  power.  By  their 
aid  we  peer  into  the  remotest  past,  and  dig 
out  its  hidden  secrets.  We  correct  its  ac- 
cepted verdicts.  We  are  re-arranging  all 
our  heroes.  We  insist  on  re-examining 
them.  Are  they  true?  Are  they  worthy 
heroes?     We   bring   before   our   eyes   those 


The   Eyes   of   the   Heart         129 

on  whom  the  verdict  of  condemnation  has 
been  passed.  Were  they  in  reaHty  un- 
worthy, or  have  we  been  hasty,  ignorant, 
prejudiced  in  our  judgment  ? 

The  eyes  of  the  mind  are  wonderful  eyes 
to  read  the  present,  too ;  and  they  yield  such 
knowledge  as  men  never  before  dreamed  of, 
such  as  was  never  entrusted  to  men  before. 
We  are  masters  of  such  resources  as  our 
fathers  never  dreamed  of  possessing.  We 
curb  death  itself.  We  almost  defy  dis- 
ease. Ah,  these  eyes  of  the  intellect  are 
starry  eyes. 

But  there  are  other  eyes,  too.  And  still 
more  we  owe  to  the  eyes  of  the  heart,  for 
they  are  the  first  eyes  we  use;  and  when, 
after  long  years,  we  have  gained  a  little 
wisdom,  we  learn  to  trust  them  above  all 
other  eyes.  We  find  they  read  more  deeply 
and  see  more  truly  far  than  the  eyes  of  the 
mind.  It  was  with  these  eyes  that  the 
great  of  the  earth,  the  great  of  all  ages  and 
times,  the  great  of  all  races  and  religions, 
saw  further  then  their  fellowmen;  with 
them  the  great  painters  painted ;  the  great 
musicians  caught  those  views  which  moved 
them  to  write  down  for  men  their  works  of 


130  The    Reasonableness   of   Faith 

immortal  music;  with  them  great  poets  see 
before  they  sing;  great  lovers  and  all  lovers 
with  them  at  all  times  loved ;  yes,  and  great 
inventors  and  discoverers  to  see  with  the 
eyes  of  the  heart  the  distant  continents 
and  islands,  the  distant  secrets  of  nature 
so  closely  hidden  from  the  eyes  of  the  mind. 
The  visions  of  men's  hearts  have  always 
initiated  the  great  enterprises  of  all  times. 
By  the  use  of  the  Byes  of  the  heart  all  has 
been  best  done  on  our  poor  earth,  all  that 
will  stand  forever  has  been  most  chiefly 
achieved. 

Ah,  friends,  and  let  us  never  forget  it ! 
The  eyes  of  the  head  will  accomplish  much. 
They  can  put  together  great  skeletons  of  life, 
erect  its  cities,  rear  its  institutions,  and  pile  up 
its  vast  wealth  by  the  sweating  of  the  race  and 
the  ransacking  of  continents,  build  a  large  and 
lordly  pleasure  house  for  man.  But  when  all 
is  said  and  done,  the  blood  of  it,  the  flesh  of  it, 
the  nerve  and  soul  of  it  are  all  the  result 
of  the  eyes  of  the  heart.  The  eyes  of  the 
head  can  plan,  and  have  in  the  past  planned 
and  achieved  vast  civilizations.  Let  men 
stop  there,  and  what  are  they  all  ?  Nothing 
but  one  vast  pent-house  wherein  men  toil; 


The   Eyes   of   the   Heart         131 

one  great  prison-house  where  blind  men 
grind,  and  hate  each  other  as  they  grind, 
till  at  last  some  blind  and  tortured  giant 
lays,  Sampson-like,  his  mighty  arms  on 
the  supporting  pillars  of  that  civilization 
and  tumbles  it,  and  all  it  doth  contain  with 
himself  into  a  suicide  grave.  'Tis  no  fancy 
thus  to  speak.  'Tis  for  this  civilization 
builded  when  she  used  the  eyes  of  the  mind, 
the  neglecting  the  eyes  of  the  heart. 

The  eyes  of  the  old  Greeks  long  ago  were 
wonderful  eyes.  They  delighted  in  beauty, 
they  kindled  at  patriotism,  but  in  them  was 
no  welcome  to  the  stranger,  no  mercy  for  the 
slave,  no  pity  for  the  cripple,  no  considera- 
tion for  the  imfortunate  and  unhappy. 

The  eyes  of  the  Roman  were  wonderful 
eyes.  They  were  like  eagles'.  They  could 
gaze  at  the  sun;  saw  law  in  its  majesty. 
Steadfast  were  they  too  and  brave.  But 
they  glowed  with  lust  and  they  glittered 
with  greed,  and  they  could  be  cruel  as  the 
eyes  of  a  wild  beast.  And  so  they  grew  to 
be  selfish  eyes,  and  learned  to  look  only  on 
those  who  flattered  their  ambition,  and 
ministered  to  their  pleasure.  Neither  Greece 
nor   Rome   cared   much   or  thought   much 


132  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

about  the  eyes  of  the  heart,  and  so  they  fell. 
And  great  was  the  fall  of  them. 

As  Paul  wrote  this  wonderful  line,  he 
could  hear  the  grinding  in  the  prison-house. 
He  could  not  fail  to  note  the  signs  of  coming 
doom,  but  no  social  disaster  could  dismay 
him.  It  was  not  with  these  eyes  he  had 
found  his  Master,  nor  with  them  was  he 
content  to  follow  Him,  judge  of  His  future, 
or  see  His  kingdom.  The  eyes  of  his  heart 
can  never  miss  his  Saviour,  and,  let  change 
and  destruction  come,  nothing  can  separate 
mankind  from  Him. 

(i)  Why  are  the  eyes  of  the  heart  to  be 
opened  and  kept  open?  Because  they  see 
further  and  see  more  truly  than  any  other 
eyes.  Let's  frankly  own  it.  Jesus  appeals 
to  the  passions  of  men,  to  their  feelings,  to 
their  emotions.  He  appeals  to  these  as 
the  highest  part  of  us.  He  knoweth  what 
is  in  man,  and  He  is  right.  For  these  are 
to  human-kind  what  instinct  is  to  the  beasts 
and  the  birds.  In  their  wise  cultivation,  ex- 
pression, and  obedience  to  their  dictates, 
lie  the  safety  and  development  of  man. 

I  am  uttering  no  vague  and  truthless 
statement  when  I  say  these  things  are  the 


The   Eyes   of  the  Heart         133 

highest  things  about  us.  So  high,  so  bind- 
ing, so  tremendously  necessary  are  they, 
that  Hfe  without  them  would  be  an  un- 
endurable struggle,  a  savage  conflict  of 
dogs  for  a  bone,  not  the  growing  unity  of 
self-respecting  men.  Competition  has  played 
a  great  part  in  man's  development  in  the 
past,  and  for  long  ages  we  shall  need  con- 
stant touches  of  the  spurs  of  competition. 
But  sheer  competition,  competition  by  itself 
alone  as  a  law  governing  life,  would  mean 
return  to  savagedom  and  the  beast.  Nay, 
it  would  be  the  conflict  of  beasts  armed  as 
were  never  beasts  before  armed,  with  all 
the  engines  of  modern  science.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  the  whole  progress 
of  mankind  absolutely  depends  on  the 
triumph  of  the  eyes  of  the  heart.  Tenderly 
they  have  been  shielded,  and  slowly,  like 
the  orbs  of  the  new-bom  baby  they  are 
growing  accustomed  to  the  light  of  day, 
getting  their  range  little  by  little.  They 
always  see  the  higher  things. 

The  eyes  of  the  mind  cry  "  Keep. "  The 
eyes  of  the  heart  cry  "Give."  The  eyes 
of  the  mind  cry  "Love  yourself."  The 
eyes  of  the  heart  cry  "  Love  your  neighbour 


134  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

as  yourself.  He  that  loveth  not  his  brother 
abideth  in  death."  The  eyes  of  the  mind 
cry  "Life  is  good  and  pleasure  is  sweet. 
Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die. " 
The  eyes  of  the  heart  tell  of  a  greater  beauty, 
a  fairer  and  holier  life,  see  beyond  the  seen 
the  unseen,  beyond  the  temporal  the  things 
eternal.  Ah,  are  we  not  foolish?  We  veil 
our  true  eyes,  we  shut  out  the  light.  We 
do  not  look  at  the  things  we  do  not  like  to 
look  at;  we  read  the  things  we  fancy,  not 
those  that  are  true;  we  surround  ourselves 
by  such  as  buttress  and  strengthen  our 
prejudices,  or  comfort  our  ignorances,  we 
live  in  our  prepossessions,  so  apt  are  we  to 
give  all  our  energy  to  one  narrow  line  in  life, 
to  the  eyes  of  the  heart  grown  dim  and 
almost  blind  through  non-use.  Life's  cus- 
toms close  in  on  us  with  slowly  shrinking 
wall,  as  did  the  old  torture  chambers  on  the 
condemned  criminal  within. 

The  divine  Man,  supreme  in  beauty  and 
holiness,  the  great  Saviour  and  leader  stands 
and  pleads  with  us  this  Palm  Sunday  just 
as  He  did  long  ago.  He  pleads  with  us  by 
living  before  us,  He  leads  us  by  going  in 
front  of  us.     He  would  woo  us  to  use  the 


The   Eyes   of  the   Heart        135 

eyes  of  the  heart  by  showing  us  how  He 
used  the  eyes  of  the  heart. 

(2.)  How  shall  we  use  these  eyes?  We 
shall  use  them  by  acknowledging  Jesus. 
Let  us  look  backward  for  a  moment  at  the 
acknowledgment  which  this  day  we  cele- 
brate. Such  a  simple  way  as  they  had  that 
Palm  Sunday  so  long  ago,  those  disciples 
of  the  Master  whose  pent-up  joy  found  this 
simple  expression.  He  had  been  holding 
them  back,  restraining  their  impetuosity. 
Now  they  may  come  forward  and  shout  and 
sing  as  they  will.  Ah,  His  coming  is  no 
longer  a  secret.  It  is  made  in  the  light  of 
day.  It  is  made  to  His  own  city.  But 
Jerusalem  does  not  want  Him.  The  kings 
mocked  Him,  her  religious  teachers  hated 
Him.  Her  poor  did  not  imderstand  Him 
and  were  so  fickle.  But  what  happened 
that  morning  has  passed  into  the  world's 
most  sacred  history,  is  guarded  and  cherished 
among  its  precious  possessions.  Some  poor, 
blundering  men  came  forward  that  day, 
and  laid  their  garments  down  on  the  ground 
before  His  sacred  feet,  and  He  walked  on 
them.  They  rejoiced  to  do  it,  for  it  was 
with  the  eyes  of  their  heart  they  saw  that 


136  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

morning  His  coming  triumph.  They  did 
not  know  much  about  the  bigotry  of  priestly 
possession,  or  the  ruthlessness  of  Roman 
power.  The  eyes  of  their  head  served  them 
poorly,  but  the  eyes  of  their  heart  were  drawn 
to  Jesus,  and  fastened  themselves  there. 
They  could  not  make  Jerusalem  accept  the 
kingly  Man,  they  could  not  make  the  re- 
ligious teachers  see  that  He  was  the  heart 
of  all  religion,  they  could  not  make  the 
governing  men  see  that  in  His  truth  lay 
the  eternal  basis  of  all  law,  the  rich  men 
see  that  only  by  Him  could  they  hold  their 
riches,  or  the  poor  men  know  that  only 
by  Him  could  they  endure  their  poverty 
and  wrong.  These  things  they  could  not 
do.  But  one  thing  they  could  and  they 
did  do.  They  could  lay  their  garments  in 
the  way.  I  think  I  see  those  garments, 
poor,  most  of  them,  and  travel-stained,  not 
rich  garments  or  spotless.  Far  from  that. 
But  they  were  all  they  had,  and  they  laid 
them  before  the  feet  of  Jesus. 

Ah,  beloved,  we  too  can  lay  our  garments 
down — what  each  man  has,  what  each  man 
is, — ^before  His  blessed  feet.  Not  do  it  in  a 
comer,  not  do  it  in  the  indulgence  of  some 


The  Eyes  of  the  Heart  137 

secret  intention,  not  hastily  try  to  do  it 
when  some  shrinking  fear,  some  terror  of 
danger  and  loss  impending  makes  shiver 
our  soul,  but  here  in  the  open  day  and 
morning  of  our  life,  when  the  sun  is  high, 
and  life  with  us  is  still  strong,  here  and  now 
lay  such  garments  as  we  have,  not  many  of 
them  rich  perhaps,  none  of  them  spotless, 
yet  lay  them  before  His  feet. 

I  like  to  think  that  after  many  years  had 
passed,  and  the  ruin  and  misery  of  Jerusa- 
lem was  over,  some  of  the  disciples  who 
paid  that  one  brief  tribute  of  praise  to  Him, 
lingered  long  enough  to  gain  some  vision  of 
what  His  triumph  meant  for  men.  Perhaps 
it  was  told  them  that  in  lands  they  had 
never  visited  and  among  the  first  cities  of 
the  earth  His  name  and  kingdom  were 
beginning  at  last  to  spread.  Then,  perhaps, 
before  they  passed,  some  of  them  would  tell 
to  their  children,  as  a  thing  ever  precious 
and  long  to  be  remembered,  that  they  were 
allowed  on  that  long-past  morning  to  lay 
the  garments  of  their  lives  where  His  feet 
would  tread. 


THE    REST    DAY 

"  Call  the  Sabbath  a  delight,  honourable,  and  I  will 

cause  thee  to  ride  upon  the  high  places  of  the  earth.  " 

— Isaiah  Ivii:  13-14  {part). 

The  original  form  in  which  the  ten  words 
were  given  was  in  all  probability  much 
briefer  than  that  in  which  at  present  we 
have  them,  The  first  four  commandments 
in  all  probability  were  in  some  such  form  as 
this: 

1.  Thou  shalt  have  no  gods  but  me. 

2.  Thou  shalt  not  make  to  thyself  any 
graven  image. 

3.  Thou  shalt  not  take  my  name  in  vain. 

4.  Thou  shalt  preserve  the  rest  day. 

The  remainder  of  this  commandment — 
Remember,  that  thou  keep  holy  the  Sabbath 
day.  Six  days  shalt  thou  labour,  and  do 
all  thy  work.  But  the  seventh  day  is  the 
Sabbath  of  the  Lord  thy  God;  in  it  thou 
shalt  not  do  any  work,  thou,  nor  thy  son, 
nor  thy  daughter,  thy  manservant,  nor  thy 
maidservant,  nor  thy  cattle,  nor  thy  stranger 
139 


I40  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

that  is  within  thy  gates.  For  in  six  days 
the  Lord  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea,  and 
all  that  in  them  is,  and  rested  the  seventh 
day;  wherefore  the  Lord  blessed  the  Sab- 
bath day,  and  hallowed  it  —  is  evident 
amplification.  Some  poet  of  long  ago  con- 
ceived of  God  as  working  six  days  and  rest- 
ing on  the  seventh,  and  by  way  of  divine 
illustration  added  this  sanction  to  the 
original  brief  commandment.  Surely  he 
was  an  inspired  poet,  and  surely  he  spoke 
a  great  truth.  His  teaching  will  abide 
though  his  theory  of  the  creation  is  hopelessly 
discredited. 

The  rest  day  is  here  to  stay.  Have  no 
fear  about  it,  my  friends.  Set  your  minds 
at  rest  on  this  point.  The  hue  and  cry 
raised  to-day  as  to  the  danger  of  a  Continental 
Sunday  in  our  land  is  a  huge  mistake.  A 
large  proportion  of  the  labouring  people  on 
the  Continent  of  Europe  know  it  not,  and 
great  is  their  loss;  but  for  us  on  this  conti- 
nent it  is  an  assured  possession.  The  rest 
day  is  here  to  stay,  not  because  the  Church 
advocates  it,  nor  even  because  the  people 
enforce  it,  nor  yet  because  it  is  rooted  in 
legal  observance.     These  are  cogent  reasons, 


The  Rest  Day  141 

but  there  is  a  stronger.  It  meets  the  needs 
of  mankind.  Americans  who,  alas,  often 
may  not  even  darken  a  church  door,  feel 
they  require  it,  and  the  American  working- 
man  has  made  up  his  mind  that  he  is  not 
going  to  work  seven  days  in  the  week. 
He  feels  it  hard  enough  to  endure  the  toil 
of  six.  The  masses  of  the  people  who  win 
their  bread  by  the  sweat  of  their  brow  are 
quite  clear  on  this  matter.  I  am  constantly 
in  receipt  of  letters  from  all  over  this  country 
from  the  working  people,  and  where  work 
is  done  occasionally  on  the  seventh  day — 
as  in  the  iron  fields — it  is  done  as  piece 
work  and  under  protest,  and  only  because 
it  is  necessary  to  meet  some  temporary 
exigency.  Let  me  again  assure  you,  nothing 
seriously  threatens  the  integrity  of  the 
rest  day. 

The  Church  cannot  be  contented  with 
the  acceptance  of  Sunday  as  a  rest  day 
merely.  And  she  is  right,  not  only  from  a 
religious  point  of  view,  but  from  a  social 
point  of  view.  This  must  be  plain  to  all 
thoughtful  people.  Man  can  only  be  truly 
man  by  educating  and  developing  and 
keeping  alive  all  of  himself.     If  he  toils  six 


142  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith  • 

days  and  simply  lies  off  the  seventh,  he 
sinks,  and  he  sinks  rapidly.  Certain 
precious  things  are  his  only  at  the  cost  of 
others'  long  struggle,  and  as  the  condition 
of  their  attainment  was  that  struggle,  he 
can,  if  he  chooses,  readily  idle  them  away. 
By  struggle  they  came  to  us.  By  cultiva- 
tion and  by  struggle  alone  can  they  be  re- 
tained by  us.  They  are  vitally  important 
things  that  call  for  food  and  exercise  quite 
as  truly  as  our  mere  muscles  do. 

First,  there  is  the  family.  The  man  who 
toils  sees  very  little  of  his  family  during 
the  week.  Whether  his  toil  be  for  millions 
or  for  a  small  weekly  wage,  long  hours  and 
fierce  competition  in  multitudes  of  instances 
prevent  his  giving  the  attention  and  thought 
that  the  poorest  or  the  richest  home  alike 
requires.  Here  let  me  pause.  Here  let  me 
give  you  the  experience  of  years  of  minis- 
terial life.  The  men  and  women  who  fail 
in  their  families  are  the  men  and  women 
who  do  not  give  them  time.  Husbands  are 
lost  because  their  wives  do  not  give  them 
time,  and  wives  and  children  are  lost  be- 
cause their  husbands  and  fathers  do  not 
give  them  time. 


The  Rest  Day  143 

His  higher  tastes  die.  All  those 
finer  things  that  make  life  worth  living 
perish  with  non-use.  And  never  forget 
that  most  of  these  things  are  only  to  be 
enjoyed  in  company  with  others.  Do  not 
think  me  narrow  when  I  tell  you  that  I  am 
learning  to  be  skeptical  of  the  man  who 
goes  to  the  country  to  worship  God.  Such 
worship  may  in  rare  instances  be  possible, 
but  for  the  far  greater  part  of  us  it  is  in 
going  to  the  "kirk"  in  close  association, 
in  the  stimulus  of  fellow  worship  with  our 
neighbours,  that  man  was  made  to  gain 
and  uplift  all  common  worship. 

Then  the  hopes  and  beliefs  that 
alone  can  support  us  in  the  hours  of  pain 
and  trial  that  sooner  or  later  must  come 
to  us  all — the  circumstances  of  the  toilful 
life  do  not  make  for  the  sustenance  and 
development  of  these.  We  who  are  ap- 
pointed to  know  sorrow  and  pain  and  at 
last  meet  death,  only  as  we  have  built  up 
and  developed  our  hopes  and  beliefs  shall 
we  be  helped  to  acquit  us  like  men  in  the 
inevitable  hour  of  trial. 

Knowledge  of  the  old  Book — all  it 
teaches,   all  it   stands  for— are  individuals 


144  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

or  a  society  yet  fitted  to  do  without  it  ?  My 
friends,  I  tell  you  the  questions  that  come 
to  me  week  by  week,  year  by  year,  display 
an  astounding  ignorance  of  the  Bible. 
Parents  who  do  not  know,  who  seem  alto- 
gether careless  that  their  children  should 
grow  up  without  knowing — how  are  they 
or  their  children  to  get  knowledge;  knowl- 
edge by  which  our  forebears  grew  strong 
and  kept  strong?  A  mere  rest  day  will 
yield  none  of  these  things.  From  time 
immemorial  men  have  seen  and  felt  the 
wisdom  of  gathering  together  on  the  rest 
day  for  the  maintenance  of  such  good 
things,  the  education  of  such  sweet  hopes 
and  inspiring  beliefs,  the  highest  and  best 
things  they  had;  and  the  usages  approved 
long  ago,  believe  me,  cannot  ruthlessly  be 
thrust  aside  if  society  or  individuals  are 
not  to  suffer  or  degenerate. 
1  How,  then,  are  we  to  commend  to 
all  men  such  a  necessary  and  healthful  use 
of  the  rest  day  as  the  Bible  commands 
and  experience  has  approved?  Here  two 
distinct  problems  confront  us.  First  I  name 
the  problem  of  the  well-to-do  or  the  rich, 
and  I  name  it  first  for,  in  my  judgment,  it 


The  Rest  Day  145 

is  much  the  more  complex,  much  the  more 
difficult  of  the  two.  Nor  is  this  surprising, 
for  plainly  in  the  Gospels,  yes,  and  plainly 
in  all  history  since  the  Gospels  were  written, 
the  main  sins  of  non-observance  have  lain 
at  the  door  of  the  well-to-do  and  the  rich. 
Jesus  said  long  ago  that  these  were  the  peo- 
ple He  could  not  reach  and  of  whom  He 
had  lost  hope.  You  will  remember  He 
could  not  induce  one  of  that  class  to  join 
His  chosen  band,  though  we  have  a  record 
of  two  efforts  He  made,  and  no  doubt  many 
of  His  efforts  were  not  recorded.  Believe 
me,  I  am  not  harsh  here.  I  am  simply 
quoting  the  expressions  of  the  Master. 
The  rich  had  so  much,  their  barns  were  so 
full,  their  tables  so  bountifully  spread, 
that  they  patronized  Him  occasionally  but 
refused  to  follow  Him.  Even  His  awful 
pronouncements  of  woe  moved  them  not, 
or  moved  them  but  temporarily.  By  ap- 
peal direct,  by  open  denunciation,  by  pa- 
thetic parable  He  approached  them;  He 
entreated  them,  but  in  vain.  Two  only  of 
their  number  gave  him  a  halting  obedience, 
and  that  after  He  was  dead — Nicodemus 
and  Joseph  of  Arimathea.     So,  if  we  claim 


146  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

the  name  of  Jesus  as  Master,  Saviour,  and 
Director,  we  are  bound  to  remember  His 
experience.    And  it  is  .most  significant. 

So  much  for  the  past.  But  turn  your  eyes 
about  you  to-day  and  see.  Try  and  imder- 
stand  what  is  passing  aroimd  you,  and  you 
will  agree  with  me  as  to  the  danger  and 
duty  of  the  hour.  There  are  in  this  audi- 
ence before  me  very  few  perhaps  who  can 
be  truthfully  arraigned  as  belonging  to  this 
class  to  which  I  have  referred,  and  I  shall 
not  be  guilty  of  the  foolish  mistake  of  criti- 
cising the  present  for  the  absent.  But 
many  of  you  have  influence,  and  here  in 
God's  house  this  morning,  with  all  earnest- 
ness of  which  I  am  capable,  I  call  upon  you 
to  use  it.  Whenever  you  can,  by  means 
direct  or  indirect,  induce  the  rich  and  fash- 
ionable people  of  the  city  to  observe  the 
rest  day  and  to  Christianize  it  for  Christ's 
sake  and  for  His  Church's  sake,  don't  fail 
to  do  it.  There  is  a  deliberate,  persistent, 
inexcusable  desecration  of  the  rest  day  by 
a  certain  number  of  our  citizens.  These 
people  figure  largely  in  the  public  eye. 
They  so  figure  because  they  have  invited 
notoriety.     What  they  do  is  printed  in  the 


The  Rest  Day  147 

daily  papers  because  they  take  pains  in 
many  instances  that  it  should  be  so  printed. 
Or,  if  they  do  not  do  this  to-day,  they  took 
pains  in  times  past  to  win  for  themselves 
this  miserable  and  notorious  position.  Once 
that  position  was  assured,  they  blamed 
the  public  prints  for  a  notoriety  which, 
with  considerable  pains  and  even  money 
they  had  won.  The  doings  of  such  people, 
heralded  all  over  the  United  States,  is  so 
much  poison  in  the  land.  Their  names 
are  on  our  church  rolls,  they  often  hold 
pews,  though  they  seldom  come  to  worship. 
Oh,  why  are  they  tired  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing? Why  take  its  early  hours  for  rest? 
Why  well-nigh  imitate  the  custom  of  the 
old  Roman  world  and  place  themselves  in 
the  hands  of  highly-trained  servitors  who 
can  restore  by  scientific  means  or  clever 
manipulation  their  overstrained  bodies? 
Why  ?  Not  because  they  are  working  harder 
for  the  country,  or  for  fortune  even,  than 
other  men  and  women,  but  because  they 
are  doing  night  work  for  themselves  as  well 
as  day  work;  because  year  after  year  finds 
them  in  a  round  of  excitement,  empty, 
aimless,   selfish,   utterly  unintellectual,   and 


148  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

in  the  fierce  struggle  for  social  pre-eminence, 
a  pre-eminence  yielded  to  mere  show.  And 
so,  slowly,  sweetness,  unselfishness,  yes,  the 
mind  itself  are  dried  up,  shrivelled  and  lost 
in  the  unnatural  and  unhealthful  processes. 
Do  what  you  can,  my  people,  to  make 
yourselves  felt  on  this  question.  If  you 
would  be  Christians  in  more  than  name, 
do  something  to  Christianize  the  rest  day, 
for  these  chief  sinners  against  the  law  of 
God  and  man  are  brutalizing  it.  The  term 
is  not  too  strong.  Do  not  go  to  the  country 
house  where  Sunday  is  desecrated.  Do 
not  join  in  Sunday  games.  Do  not  give 
Simday  receptions.  Forego  even  Christian 
liberty,  if  necessary,  that  the  Christian  rest 
day  may  be  retained.  Ah,  try  and  know 
yourselves.  Know  your  children.  And  know 
your  God  on  that  day.  This  is  the 
true  Lord's  day  indeed. 

Then  there  is  the  problem  of  those  who 
are  not  well-to-do  or  rich.  These,  too, 
are  desecrating  the  Lord's  day.  What 
can  we  do  for  them?  How  reach  them? 
To  this  problem  I  have  given  much  time 
and  thought,  and  I  may  claim  some  special 
knowledge.     The    first    thing    I    think    we 


The  Rest  Day  149 

ought  to  do  is  to  face  the  fact  that  by  the 
most  of  such  people  we  are  largely  misunder- 
stood. Multitudes  of  plain  people  in  our 
cities  dislike  Christianity,  and  I  am  very 
sure  one  of  the  chief  reasons,  if  not  the 
chief  reason,  for  this  dislike  is  that  we  have 
not  gone  to  them  in  the  name  of  Christ,  but 
have  used  methods  of  law.  Nothing  can 
be  more  unchristian,  nothing  more  fatal. 
Practically  we  have  said  to  them:  We  will 
shut  you  up  to  church-going  by  law.  If 
you  won't  go  to  church,  you  shall  not  do 
other  things.  It  is  the  old  Puritan  position 
over  again.  It  never  did  work,  it  never 
could  work,  not  even  under  the  tremendous 
rule  of  the  great  Cromwell.  We  have 
practically  said:  You  shall  not  play,  you 
shall  not  read,  you  shall  not  learn,  you 
shall  not  go  to  the  country.  My  friends, 
some  of  you  think  I  am  exaggerating — I 
wish  I  were — but  it  is  not  so.  Who,  may  I 
ask,  opposed  the  opening  of  the  musetims 
kept  up  by  taxes  drawn  from  the  people's 
money?  Who  for  years  but  the  churches 
were  the  forefront  of  opposition?  Who 
opposed  the  opening  of  libraries?  The 
churches.     Who    opposed    the    running    of 


150  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

street  cars  and  Sunday  trains,  the  only 
possible  means  by  which  the  multitude  can 
reach  the  country?  The  churches.  Who 
fiercely  advocated  the  forbidding  of  Simday 
games  to  the  young  ?  Insensate  folly  !  The 
churches.  If  a  boy,  forbidden  by  New 
York  law  to  play  on  the  public  streets,  gets 
half  a  dozen  lads  to  join  him  in  a  surrepti- 
tious game  of  ball  on  some  vacant  lot,  when 
the  pickets  placed  all  around  the  neighbour- 
hood give  warning  of  the  approaching 
policeman — who  sets  the  enginery  of  the  law 
against  him,  until  all  his  boyish  wit  is  en- 
gaged to  avoid  that  law  or  defy  it?  The 
churches.  That  lad  pockets  his  ball  and 
hides  his  bat,  but  takes  a  mental  resolution 
that  churches,  Sunday-school  teachers  and 
parsons  are  his  natural  enemies. 

Twelve  years  ago  you,  my  people,  know  I 
stood  alone  in  New  York  in  advocating 
what  appeared  to  me  simple  justice,  namely, 
the  opening  of  the  saloon  on  certain  hours 
on  Sunday.  Since  then  I  have  not  changed 
my  mind;  all  the  more  so,  that  since  then 
many  of  the  men  I  know,  and  whose  judg- 
ment I  respect,  have  taken  substantially 
the  same  ground.     Once  again  let  me  try 


The  Rest  Day  151 

and  make  my  position  plain.  I  am  not  ap- 
proving the  present  saloon.  Any  one  who 
asserts  I  ever  have  approved  or  do  approve 
the  present  saloon  perverts  what  I  said. 
God  forbid !  I  would  to  God  that  every 
saloon  in  New  York  could  be  closed,  and 
kept  closed  seven  days  in  the  week,  but  it 
is  just  as  certain  as  that  I  stand  to  preach 
to  you  this  morning  that  the  present  saloon, 
bad  as  it  is,  is  the  only  means  of  supplying  a 
great  social  need  in  this  city.  If  you  would 
win  people  from  it  you  must  give  them 
something  better.  Educate  the  people  to 
want  something  better,  give  them  a  sub- 
stitute (and  mark  me,  this  can  be  done  and 
one  of  these  days  will  be  done),  and  then 
you  can  oppose  the  saloon.  But  until  you 
do,  to  close  it  up  on  Sunday  is  doing  all  you 
can  to  make  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 
in  the  community  resent  your  interference 
and  protest  against  it,  and  also  doing  all  you 
can  to  fasten  corruption  and  blackmail  on  the 
city  of  New  York.  To  attempt  to  close 
the  saloons  when  hundreds  of  thousands 
want  to  use  them,  and  think  they  have  a 
right  to  use  them,  is  simply  to  repeat  the 
old  fatal  mistake  of  seeking  to  make  people 


152  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

good  by  legislation.  Supply  their  wants  in 
a  better  way,  teach  them  that  they  are 
wrong  in  wishing  to  use  them,  and  then 
you  have  accomplished  your  object  and  not 
before. 

Be  patient  with  me.  Let  me  make  my 
position  plain  beyond  any  possibility  of 
misunderstanding.  I  believe  in  local  option, 
but  I  think  a  great  city  is  not  like  a  country 
district.  If  you  vote  local  option  in  a 
country  district  by  a  substantial  majority 
the  law  can  be  enforced.  I  do  not  believe 
it  can  be  so  enforced  in  a  city.  If  New  York 
voted  to-morrow  by  fifty  thousand  majority 
to  close  the  saloons  in  New  York  on  Sunday, 
those  saloons  could  not  be  kept  closed  so 
long  as  a  great  minority  believed  they  had 
the  right,  and  still  retained  the  desire,  to 
use  them.  I  really  think  that  almost  any- 
body who  will  give  careful  thought  to  the 
question  will  agree  with  me  here.  Let  me 
illustrate. 

There  is  not  one  man  in  ten  in  New  York 
who  wants  to  bet.  Yet  so  long  as  that  one 
in  ten  is  allowed,  without  any  loss  of  charac- 
ter, to  bet  $10,000  on  a  horse  at  Morris 
Park,  so  long  as  the  odds  on  the  races  are 


The  Rest  Day  153 

published  in  all  the  respectable  papers,  and 
the  coming  and  going  of  the  folks  who 
keep  up  these  establishments  are  a  matter 
of  public  notoriety,  it  would  be  altogether 
beyond  the  power  of  the  police  or  any 
municipal  government,  however  reformed 
and  good,  permanently  to  stop  the  news- 
boy from  betting  his  ten  cents  in  the  policy 
shop.  Why?  Because,  though  nine-tenths 
of  the  population  do  not  bet,  they  cannot 
force  their  judgment  on  the  one-tenth  that 
want  to.  Now,  on  the  other  hand,  not  one 
man  in  a  thousand  in  New  York  has  a 
desire  to  steal.  Therefore  the  nine  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  can  enforce  the  law  against 
larceny.  Therefore  I  say  to  you  this  Sun- 
day morning  (and  in  days  to  come  will  you 
please  remember  what  I  have  said?)  that 
so  long  as  a  substantial  minority  in  the  city 
of  New  York  want  to  use  the  saloons  on 
Sunday,  our  efforts  to  close  the  saloons 
will  result  only  in  secret  debauchery  and 
law-breaking.  The  evils  of  drunkenness 
are  bad  enough — so  bad  that  there  is  no 
need  to  exaggerate  them — but  it  will  not  do 
to  make  the  sin  of  the  drunkard  the  con- 
venient scapegoat  on  which  to  pile  all  evil 


154  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

things.  This  nation  is  in  no  danger  of 
becoming  a  nation  of  drunkards,  in  spite  of 
all  that  is  said  to  the  contrary.  Our  con- 
sumption of  alcohol  per  capita  is  one- 
quarter  that  of  France,  and  one-half  that  of 
England;  and  it  is  decreasing.  But  there 
is  a  worse  sin.  Drunkenness  may  threaten 
our  nation,  but  there  is  another  and  a  graver 
threat.  There  is  a  sin  that  lays  its  poison 
to  the  very  root  of  democratic  institutions, 
and  of  it  I  am  far  more  afraid  than  of  the 
sin  of  intemperance.  It  is  the  sin  of  a  light 
regard  for  law,  a  law  which  we  have  estab- 
lished. Let  this  sin  prevail  and  Freedom 
herself  dies.  Freedom  is  only  possible  where 
men  highly  regard  law. 

One  of  the  most  brilliant  bishops  who 
ever  sat  on  the  English  bench  more  than, 
twenty  years  ago  cried  in  the  House  of 
Lords :  "I  would  rather  see  England  free 
than  sober.  "  Thoughtless  people  and  many 
good  reformers  howled.  But  the  great 
bishop  was  right.  Sobriety  to  be  lasting 
and  uplifting  tmist  be  the  free  and  deliberate 
choice  of  free  and  intelligent  men.  The  only 
true  temperance  reformer  is  the  man  who 
stands   for   freedom.     You   may   imagine   a 


The  Rest  Day  155 

nation  of  sober  slaves,  but  you  cannot 
imagine  a  nation  of  drunken  free-men. 
To  disregard  law  is  to  undermine  and  plot 
against  Freedom  herself. 

Ah,  my  friends  and  neighbours,  the 
people  of  this  city  are  turning  away 
from  the  Church  of  God.  The  man  who 
cannot  see  this  is  blind.  Tens  of  thousands 
of  men  in  this  city  who  went  to  church 
regularly  years  ago  scarcely  ever  go  now. 
Ten  of  thousands  of  children  are  growing 
up  with  no  interest  in  the  Church  and  no 
knowledge  of  the  Bible.  These  are  not 
to  be  won  back  by  legal  enactments.  They 
think  the  Christian  people  and  the  Christian 
ministers  do  not  know  them  or  care  for  them. 
They  think  the  Christian  churches  are  a 
mere  luxury  of  the  rich.  (I  except  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  She  is  not  leaving 
working  people  or  putting  them  iii  mission 
chapels,  as  we  have  sought  to  do.)  We 
cannot  convince  them  of  our  care  for  them 
by  going  to  Albany,  there  to  pass  laws 
to  make  them  good. 

Oh,  look  round  you  and  see  what  the 
city  is.  See  what  the  lives  of  the  people 
are.     And  then  kneel  to   God  for  wisdom 


156  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  for  courage  to  use  your  best  endeavour, 
your  persistent  example,  so  that  the  rest 
day  may  be  the  real  Lord's  day  to  all  the 
people  of  the  community.  Ah,  God  bless 
New  York !  The  destinies  of  a  great  people 
are  largely  in  her  keeping.  As  she  pushes 
forward  to  the  great  unexplored  future, 
she  needs — if  any  city  of  the  earth  needs — a 
rest  day.  But  it  must  be  baptized  and 
Christianized  afresh,  a  day  of  repose,  a  day 
to  re-knit  tender  ties,  a  day  to  serve  men 
and  worship  God,  the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 


PHILLIPS    BROOKS 

"Know  ye  not  that  there  is  a  prince  and  a  great 
man  fallen  this  day  in  Israel?" — II  Samuel,  Hi,  j8. 

If  we  can  gauge  a  man's  greatness  by  our 
sorrow  at  his  loss,  then  in  Phillips  Brooks, 
Bishop  of  Massachusetts,  the  Christian 
Church  and  the  nation  have  lost  one  of  the 
greatest.  The  death  of  the  great  financier 
moves  the  market.  Men  speculate  on  what 
he  made,  and  how  he  made  it.  The  death 
of  the  great  politician  makes  men  talk 
more.  It  arouses  the  widest  range  of 
interest.  The  death  of  the  great  teacher 
and  preacher  makes  sad  hearts.  And  this 
should  be  so,  for  he  is  by  far  the  rarest  of 
the  three. 

Phillips  Brooks  was  a  preacher.  Let 
me  briefly  glance  at  some  of  the  elements 
of  his  power.  Many  have  spoken  some- 
what slightingly  of  his  power  and  gifts  as  a 
theologian;  and  if  the  chopped  straw  that 
often  passes  for  theological  learning,  and 
the  only  sort  of  theological  learning  worth 
157 


158  The    Reasonableness    of   Faith 

the  name — if  acquaintance  with  this  and 
successful  handling  of  it  be  necessary  in  the 
theologian,  there  was  much  in  the  criticism 
that  was  just.  But  to-day,  surely,  we  test 
things  by  results,  and  so  tested,  the  great 
man  who  is  gone  was  far  from  lacking  as  a 
theologian.  It  seems  to  be  beyond  argu- 
ment, that  the  main  value  of  theology  lies 
in  the  attainment  of  one  aim  and  end, 
that  is,  the  bringing  near  and  making  real 
of  God  to  man.  If  it  is  a  science  dealing 
with  the  past,  it  must  so  deal  with  it  that 
it  record  and  arrange  human  thought  con- 
cerning God,  so  as  to  bring  the  record  of 
man's  thinking  in  the  past  to  the  knowledge 
of  man  in  the  present  in  such  a  way  that 
one  generation  in  some  sort  inherits  the 
prayers,  heavenward  strivings,  and  holiest 
and  highest  speculation  of  all  the  generations 
preceding  it. 

If  this  be  the  scope  and  meaning  of  the- 
ology, then  surely  one  who  moved  so  con- 
tinuously and  permanently  what  was  best 
in  the  religious  and  intellectual  thought  of 
New  England,  helping  vast  numbers  toward 
a  living  belief  in  the  God  and  Father  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ — he  surely  shall   not  be 


Phillips  Brooks  159 

denied   a   place   among   the   theologians   of 
his    time.     To    the    stiff    churchman,    de- 
manding before  all  things  clear-cut  defini- 
tions   of   doctrinal    belief,    Phillips    Brooks 
naturally   seemed    hazy   as   a   thinker,    and 
sometimes  loosely  heterodox.     To  the  scien- 
tific spirit,  demanding  impossible  assurances 
in  the  physical  realm  of  spiritual  realities, 
he  also  naturally  seemed  a  visionary  dreamer, 
eloquent,    but    fanciful.     Neither    of    these 
positions    could    he    understand;    to    those 
holding  them  he  was  not  perhaps  sufficiently 
sympathetic.     Each  in  its  own  way  seemed 
to    him    inexcusably    irreverent,     since     it 
was  the  effort  to  define  the  Infinite  in  terms 
of  the  finite.     With  neither  could  he  be  in- 
duced to  discuss  or  to  argue.    Definitions  and 
discussions   he   abhorred.     But   his   convic- 
tion was  contagious.     With  his  whole  soul 
he  believed  in  the  infinite  God,  and  in  his 
case   it   was   proved   once   again,    that   the 
victory  that  overcometh  the  world  is  our 
faith.     His  faith  was  sublimely  simple. 

And  so  to  the  hesitating  mind  of  New 
England,  somewhat  given  to  over  definition, 
he  came  as  a  divinely  empowered  messenger. 
He  brought  to  much  that  was  best  in  that 


i6o  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

mind  what  it  most  needed — the  warmth 
and  fire  of  an  ennobled  and  ennobling 
Christian  emotion;  for  emotional  in  the 
best  sense  Phillips  Brooks  was.  Beyond 
doubt,  he  was  Massachusetts'  truest,  great- 
est pastor  and  teacher.  Born  from  Puritan 
stock,  living  among  the  descendants  of  the 
Puritan,  he  seems  fit  successor  to  that 
noble  man,  John  Robinson,  who,  in  his 
own  day,  with  spiritual  instinct  rising 
above  all  narrowness  of  the  time,  to  that 
little  band  embarking  at  Delftshaven  more 
than  two  hundred  years  ago  for  these 
shores,  delivered  as  a  final  and  solemn  in- 
junction the  words:  "Beloved  brethren, 
I  charge  you  to  believe  that  God  has  yet 
more  light  to  break  forth  from  His  Word. " 
To  Phillips  Brooks  that  Word  was  no  mere 
book,  but  the  Man,  the  everlasting  Son  of 
the  Father,  ever  revealing  Himself  as  His 
brethren  are  able  to  bear  His  light,  in  all 
great  books,  true  histories,  good  men — 
God  once  for  all  revealed  in  Jesus,  ever  and 
always  immanent  in  His  world. 

More  light  to  break  forth.  Here  he 
based  his  message.  With  girded  loins  he 
was  looking  for  his  Lord,  seeing  Him  ever 


Phillips  Brooks  i6i 

coming,  clothed  in  His  new  Messiahship, 
to  each  new  age,  in  each  new  year,  in  each 
new  duty.  Here  lay  his  power.  He  be- 
lieved, and  he  made  men  believe  in  the 
Living  God,  divinely  immanent;  as  he 
preached  he  knew  God  was  to  be  found  of  us, 
and  no  man  failed  in  finding  Him  who 
honestly  looked  within.  "Say  not  in  thine 
heart,  Who  shall  ascend  into  heaven  ?  (That 
is,  to  bring  Christ  down  from  above)  or, 
Who  shall  descend  into  the  deep?  (That  is, 
to  bring  up  Christ  again  from  the  dead.) 
The  word  is  nigh  thee,  even  in  thy  heart: 
the  word  of  faith  which  we  preach." 

Let  me  repeat  it.  This  was  the  beginning 
and  end  of  his  theology :  the  God  and  Father 
of  Jesus  Christ  upholding  all  things  by  the 
word  of  His  power.  Whose  nature  is  love, 
Whose  home  is  the  heart  of  man.  He 
based  his  thought  squarely  and  fairly  on 
the  immanence  of  God.  Because  there  is 
divine  immanence,  there  must  be  ever 
divine  evolution.  Men  are  looking  in  vain 
for  Him  without,  because  they  have  for- 
gotten Him  within.  God  revealing  in  Jesus 
those  laws,  that  life,  by  which  ever  and 
always,    whether    in    the    darkest    past    or 


1 62  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

remotest  future,  He  must  mould  and  woo 
mankind  to  Himself. 

Yes,  he  was  a  preacher,  easily  our  first. 
Nor,  to  my  mind,  since  Frederick  Robertson 
died  in  Brighton,  England,  thirty-six  years 
ago,  has  there  been  his  equal  across  the 
water. 

Three  elements  of  power  were  his.  Genius 
of  insight,  wonderful  gifts  of  expression, 
and  soul-compelling  love.  Cried  Matthew 
Arnold : 

■'  We  cannot  kindle  when  we  will 
The  fire  that  in  the  soul  resides." 

Ah,  true,  so  true.  And  just  because  it  is 
so,  we  reverence  the  genius,  that,  like  the 
fabled  demagogue  of  old,  brings  heavenly 
fire  to  the  cold  ashes  of  our  poor  human 
hearths.  Those  who  listened  to  the  rich 
tones  of  his  voice,  carried  beyond  them- 
selves, lost  to  all  outer  things,  the  man 
himself  forgotten  by  them,  were  wont  to 
say,  as  were  said  by  the  men  in  the  company 
of  the  Greatest  one  evening  long  ago: 
"Did  not  our  hearts  bum  within  us  as  He 
talked  with  us  by  the  way  and  opened  to  us 
the  Scriptures?"  He  lived  for  men  and 
loved  them  and  knew  them;  and  he  lived 


Phillips  Brooks  163 

with  God.  And  so  the  worship  of  God  was 
after  all  beautiful  and  possible,  and  His 
service  was  perfect  freedom.  So  much  he 
made  you  feel.  You  felt  that  he  spoke, 
net  as  one  standing  on  an  impossible  height 
(he  never  made  that  most  common  and 
fatal  clerical  mistake  of  talking  down  to 
his  people) ;  but  what  he  knew  he  did,  what 
he  said  he  was. 

His  power  was  rare.  It  was  the  power 
of  moving  men.  I  shall  never  forget  an 
instance  of  it,  which,  in  a  poor  way,  I  must 
try  to  recal  to  you.  It  was  at  the  Church 
Congress  at  Providence,  if  I  remember 
rightly.  He  was  pleading  for  the  larger 
use  of  extemporary  prayer  in  the  fixed 
services  of  the  Church;  and  as  his  speech 
drew  to  a  close,  he  clinched  all  that  had 
gone  before  with  the  following  illustration: 
"The  General  Convention  of  our  church 
was  in  session  in  1871,  when  the  news  was 
flashed — 'Chicago  burning.'  It  was  moved 
at  once  that  the  order  of  business  be  sus- 
pended, and  that  both  houses  proceed  to 
prayer.  What  form,  as  led  by  their  pre- 
siding bishop,  should  the  supplications  of 
that  representative  body  take?    All  knelt 


164  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  joined  in  the  Litany,  a  noble  prayer, 
comprehensive  beyond  all  others,  hallowed 
to  us  by  undying  memories  of  ages  past; 
yet  perhaps  the  only  woe  it  does  not  deal 
with  is  the  woe  of  a  burning  city."  I  shall 
never  forget  the  closing  moments  of  that 
speech,  or  the  thrill  that  took  us  all,  as  his 
words  seemed  to  have  real,  stinging  points 
to  them,  making  themselves  felt  in  the 
bodies  as  well  as  the  souls  of  men.  The 
dusk  of  the  evening  was  coming  on,  and  a 
spell  was  on  the  assembly  as  he  sat  down. 

His  was  not  only  the  power  of  a  very 
pure  eloquence,  but  of  an  utter  simplicity. 
When  I  heard  that  he  had  been  elected 
Bishop  of  Massachusetts,  feeling  how  much 
that  election  meant  for  the  whole  Church 
in  this  land,  I  could  not  but  telegraph: 
"Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow." 
And  back  came  his  simple  answer:  "Thank 
you.  I  will  be  as  good  a  Bishop  as  I  can." 
How  he  dreaded  that  in  some  way  the  ec- 
clesiastical traditions  of  the  Episcopate 
might  hedge  him  off  somewhat  from  his 
companions  and  friends.  Alas !  too  often 
they  do.  On  the  day  of  his  consecration, 
some  of  us  were  sitting  in  his  study  in  the 


Phillips  Brooks  165 

evening.  When  we  rose  to  go  I  shall  never 
forget  the  pressure  of  his  great,  big  hand, 
and  the  look  in  his  eye  as  he  said :  ' '  Please 
God,  I  will  be  just  the  same,  just  the  same. " 

I  know  no  words  that  bring  him  back  to 
me,  bring  back  all  he  strove  for,  more 
clearly  than  those  spoken  shortly  before 
his  death:  "We  must  come  back  to  our 
Lord  again,  and  everything  becomes  clearer 
in  that  very  clearest  life,  which  is  our  per- 
petual inspiration  and  study.  Christ  was 
cultivating  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  yet 
was  remembering  His  fellow  men  who 
were  around  him  in  Jerusalem  and  Galilee; 
but  all  this  was  subject  to  and  governed  by 
His  entire  consecration  to  God.  And  so, 
my  friends,  the  secret  and  solution  of  it  lies 
here.  You  are  to  cultivate  yourselves  for 
the  sake  of  your  fellow-men,  and  you  are 
to  serve  your  fellow-men  for  the  sake  of 
your  own  self -culture ;  but  you  are  to  save 
both  these  efforts  from  the  self-conscious- 
ness which  is  the  taint  and  poison  of  them 
both,  by  forgetting  both  of  them  and  by 
lifting  both  of  them  into  the  very  life  of 
God." 

Shortly  before  his  election  as  Bishop  of 


i66  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Massachusetts,  I  spent  a  day  and  night 
with  him.  Even  to  his  intimate  friends 
he  never  readily  and  with  ease  spoke  of 
himself.  When,  therefore,  late  into  the 
night  (it  was  Sunday,  and  he  loved  to  sit 
up  chatting  with  a  friend  or  two,  after 
Sunday  work  was  over),  we  were  left  alone, 
I  was  deeply  moved  when  he  himself  let 
our  talk  take  a  personal  drift.  I  had  known 
him  since  1876  when,  a  very  green  and 
unaccustomed  English  stranger,  he  had 
taken  me  in  and  made  me  preach  at  Trinity. 
In  a  hundred  ways  since  then  he  had  helped 
me  to  larger  views  of  the  truth  of  God. 
I  had  many  times  tried  to  speak  about  my 
own  personal  wants  and  fears,  and  had 
found  that  such  confidences  seemed  to  be 
rather  unwelcome  and  difficult  to  him. 
But  this  evening  I  felt  near  the  great,  good 
heart  of  the  man,  as  he  passed  from  dis- 
cussion of  the  work  we  were  given  to  that 
of  his  own  experience  and  life.  He  spoke 
frankly  of  the  possibility  of  his  leaving 
Trinity.  I  said  something  about  the  deep 
pain  such  a  move  would  cause.  "Yes," 
said  he,  "but  I  have  said  all  I  know,  I 
have  delivered  what  was  given  me  to  say, 


Phillips  Brooks  167 

and   now   nothing   remains   for   me  but   to 
amplify  it." 

Wisely  and  accurately  he  summed  up  his 
life,  so  it  seemed  to  me  that  night;  so  it 
seems  to  me  now.  Bitterly  as  we  mourn 
him,  greatly  as  we  need  him,  much  as  we 
expected  from  him,  within  our  House  of 
Bishops  and  without,  no  man  could  doubt 
of  all  those  who  loved  him  and  learned 
from  him,  that  his  own  view  of  his  ministry 
was  true.  You  might  say  it  had  one  text. 
Indeed,  for  seven  consecutive  days  he 
preached  on  it,  but  a  year  ago,  in  Boston. 
"  I  am  come  that  ye  may  have  life,  and  that 
ye  may  have  it  more  abundantly."  To  all 
the  mean,  engrossing,  atrophying,  narrowing 
influences  of  modem  life,  he  brought  the 
gospel  of  largeness  of  life  in  Christ.  He 
knew  the  struggle  for  men  to-day  was 
pretty  much  as  Bunyan  depicted  it  long 
ago — the  struggle  in  the  choice  between 
the  muck-heap  and  the  muck-rake,  while 
the  unseen  angel  offered  the  unnoticed 
crown.  Brooks  saw,  as  was  given  to  few 
to  see,  the  utter  worthlessness  of  the  muck- 
heap  and  the  glistening  glory  of  the  crown; 
but  well  he  knew  that  the  man  who  would 


i68  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

save  his  fellows  from  the  one,  and  win  them 
to  choice  of  the  other,  must  spend  his  time, 
not  in  denouncing  the  lowest,  but  in  offering 
the  highest;  not  in  dwelling  on  the  worth- 
lessness  of  the  muck-heap,  but  the  glisten- 
ing glory  of  the  crown.  This  he  did  with 
splendid  persistency  again  and  again. 

Let  no  man  then  say  that  the  days  of 
preacher  and  of  preaching  are  over;  that 
amid  the  hurry  and  stress  of  our  time  the 
opportunities  of  the  preacher  are  passed  or 
are  passing  away.  To  a  man  who  imder- 
stands  his  age  and  believes  in  his  God, 
men  will,  as  they  did  to  him,  reverently 
listen.  They  will  hail  him  as  leader,  they 
will  trust  him  and  love  him  as  friend,  and 
among  the  very  chiefest  of  their  benefactors 
they  will  delight  to  count  him. 

He  died  as  he  would  have  liked  to  die. 
To  some  of  His  great  ones  God  does  even 
here  give  the  desire  of  their  hearts;  and  he 
had  his  desire.  There  was  a  dread  on  him 
of  dying  slowly,  a  dread  of  outliving  his 
full  vigour.  With  manhood  at  full  tide, 
a  manhood  that  had  never  known  the 
touch  of  soilure,  he  has  gone  from  us.  His 
strength   was   firm,    his   natural   force   un- 


Phillips  Brooks  169 

abated,  when  the  post  from  the  celestial 
city  sounded  his  horn  at  his  chamber  door. 
From  his  splendid  personality,  there  shall 
down  here  no  more  ring  forth  that  jubilee 
challenge  of  his  to  all  things  mean,  im- 
worthy  and  unmanly;  but  the  memory  of 
him  abides  with  us  and  will  abide.  Tens  of 
thousands  who  have  never  seen  or  heard 
him  will  in  years  to  come  think  of  Phillips 
Brooks  as  perhaps  the  best  evidence  of 
what  our  nineteenth  century  manhood  at 
its  highest  was  capable.  And  all  over 
this  broad  land  the  multitude  of  those  who 
knew  and  loved  him  and  were  helped  by  him 
will  talk  of  Phillips  Brooks  as  of  one,  who, 
like  Great  Heart  in  the  Immortal  Progress, 
was  specially  chosen  of  his  king  to  guide 
pilgrims  to  that  celestial  city  which,  with 
inspired  eye,  he  so  clearly  saw. 

I  stood  in  his  study  on  Thursday  morning, 
the  room  he  lived  and  worked  in,  where 
many  of  us  had  listened  to  his  genial,  hope- 
ful, inspiring  talk,  in  times  gone  by,  and 
looked  across  the  open  space  to  Trinity 
Church.  It  was  thronged.  Silently,  in  the 
cold  Winter  sunlight,  the  people  stood  there. 
Down  the  long  street  to  the  Common  the 


170  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

lines  of  those  who  wished  to  see  his  face  for 
the  last  time  patiently  stood  waiting.  Flags 
were  at  half-mast,  shops  and  exchanges 
closed  or  closing.  Boston  was  indeed  mourn- 
ing her  great  dead.  And  as  I  stood  and 
looked,  the  triumphant  lines  closing  Tenny- 
son's splendid  poem  of  "Arthur"  came  to 
me.  I  shall  never  again  probably  see  them  so 
illustrated.     It  was: 

"As  though  a  mighty  city  were  one  voice 
Around  a  king  returning  from  his  wars." 

January,  30,  1893. 


OUR  DUTY  TO  CIVrLIZATION.  OR 
WHO  IS  MY  NEIGHBOUR? 


"  But  he,  willing  to  justify  himself,  said  unto  Jesus, 
And  who  is  my  neighbour  ? 

"And  Jesus  answering  said,  A  certain  man  went 
down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  and  fell  among 
thieves,which  stripped  him  of  his  raiment,  and  wounded 
him,  and  departed,  leaving  him  half  dead. 

"And  by  chance  there  came  down  a  certain  priest 
that  way;  and  when  he  saw  him,  he  passed  by  on  the 
other  side. 

"And  likewise  a  Levite,  when  he  was  at  the  place, 
came  and  looked  on  him,  and  passed  by  on  the  other 
side. 

"But  a  certain  Samaritan,  as  he  journeyed,  came 
where  he  was;  and  when  he  saw  him,  he  had  com- 
passion on  him. 

"And  went  to  him,  and  bound  vip  his  wounds, 
pouring  in  oil  and  wine,  and  set  him  on  his  own  beast, 
and  brought  him  to  an  inn,  and  took  care  of  him. 

"And  on  the  morrow  when  he  departed,  he  took 
out  two  pence,  and  gave  them  to  the  host,  and  said 
unto  him,  Take  care  of  him:  and  whatsoever  thou 
spendest  more,  when  I  come  again,  I  will  repay  thee. 

"Which  now  of  these  three,  thinkest  thou,  was 
neighbour  unto  him  that  fell  among  the  thieves  ? 

"And  he  said,  He  that  shewed  mercy  on  him. 
Then  said  Jesus  unto  him.  Go,  and  do  thou  likewise. " 

— Luke  x:  zg-^J- 


The  Jewish  sense  of  obligation  to  his  fel- 
low man  was  tribal  only :  to  their  own  people, 
to  their  own  fellow  religionists  they  owed 
something ;  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  nothing. 
171 


T72  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Little  as  we  yet  understand  and  acknowl- 
edge it,  Christ's  teaching  of  neighbourly- 
obligation  is  nothing  less  than  world  wide. 
At  first,  man's  conception  of  what  he  owes 
to  his  fellow-man  is  a  very  inadequate  and 
limited  conception.  He  is  prepared  to  serve 
those  who  are  dependent  on  him,  or,  per- 
haps, I  had  better  say,  those  on  whose  well- 
being  he  is  dependent,  whose  happiness  or 
misery  affects  himself.  Now,  in  the  provi- 
dence of  God,  every  advantage  in  civiliza- 
tion means  a  widening  of  this  circle  of  in- 
fluence, means  a  constant  increasing  of  the 
number  of  people  whose  well-being  or 
ill-being  intimately  affects  us.  Human  law 
lags  a  long  way  behind  human  conscience; 
and  yet  law,  to-day,  in  a  thousand  ways 
enforces  neighbourly  obligations  on  us,  be- 
cause those  obligations  are  recognized  by 
all  which,  a  few  generations  ago,  would 
scarcely  be  recognized  at  all,  or  by  the  very 
few  whose  sense  of  responsibility  to  their 
fellow-man  was  specially  high,  peculiarly 
Christian.  To-day,  a  religion  that  ignores 
duty  to  our  neighbour  contents  us  not,  is 
no  longer  true  to  us.  Whatever  charges 
may  be  brought  against  our  generation  this 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization         173 

much,  at  least,  is  true  of  it,  that  it  sees,  far 
more  clearly  than  other  generations  saw, 
the  absolute  truth  of  what  Jesus  Christ 
said,  that  ' '  he  who  would  save  his  life  shall 
lose  it,"  and  that  they  who  would  enjoy 
life,  whole,  sound,  and  abundant,  are  men, 
or  are  peoples,  most  ready  to  discharge 
their  obligations  to  others. 

But  in  spite  of  this  growing  sense  of 
neighbourly  obligation,  the  responsibilities 
of  nationhood  many  good  men  still  ignore 
and  deny.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say 
that  these  obligations  are  abhorrent  to 
them.  Their  minds  have  been  so  much 
occupied  with  the  pursuit  of  their  own 
immediate  well-being,  so  taken  up  in  the 
excessive  activity  of  their  routine  duties, 
that  they  have  formed  no  clear  or  adequate 
conception  of  any  obligations  Jesus  Christ 
has  imposed  on  them  to  others  than  those 
who  form  their  immediate  circle.  To  them- 
selves it  seems  a  very  plain  case,  to  them- 
selves the  argument  is  unanswerable. 
"What  have  we  to  do  with  other  peoples? 
See  our  own  evils,  our  own  shortcomings, 
see  the  evidence  of  corruption  and  failure 
in  our  own  land,  in   our  own  institutions. 


174  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Having  failed,  or  only  partially  succeeded 
here,  what  have  we  to  do  with  others?" 
And  when,  in  the  providence  of  God,  the 
obligations  of  our  nation  to  other  people 
have  gradually  drifted  us  into  the  position 
in  which  we  find  ourselves  to-day,  and  war 
is  an  accomplished  fact,  these  people  wake 
up  with  a  start  of  horror.  They  forget 
that  what  is  taking  place  is  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  a  long  course  of  previous 
events,  and  instead  of  going  to  the  root  of 
the  matter  and  protesting  against  those 
sins  of  self-seeking  which  have  made  war 
inevitable,  they  cry  out  against  war  itself. 
It  would  be  just  as  sane  to  cry  out  against 
the  surgeon,  or  to  protest  against  the  opera- 
tion which  alone  can  save  life.  There  was  a 
time  when  it  might  have  been  prevented, 
but,  that  time  having  passed,  to  the  knife 
alone  we  must  look  for  what  medicine 
might  once  have  done. 

Let  us  sanely  look  at  the  situation  as  it 
really  is  and  ask  ourselves  what  duty  we 
have  to  perform. 

What  is  war?  War  is  not  only  con- 
flict carried  on  with  rifles  and  warships.  It 
is  a  state  of  things  in  which,  unduly  and  im- 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization         175 

fairly,  a  man  urges  his  claims  against  an- 
other man.     War  is  not  confined  to  nations. 
Unfortunately,   it   is   resident     in     what   is 
called  civilized  society.     There  is  consider- 
able war  going  on  in  the  world  all  the  time. 
The  generations  to  come  will  speak  of  the 
nineteenth  century  as  a  century  of  constant 
war.     War   is   taking   more   than   is   right, 
withholding  what  is  due,  pushing  the  weak 
to  the  wall.     Under  this  larger  idea  of  war, 
much  that  passes  as  legitimate  competition 
in    commerce    is    war.     To    push    business 
as  many  push  it  is  war.     To  prosecute  the 
fortimes  of  monopoly  as  these  are  commonly 
prosecuted  to-day  is  war.      To  acquire  vast 
wealth    by    pitiless     competition    is    war. 
Stealing  franchises  by  bribery,  or  obtaining 
them  by  lobbying,   or  the  illegitimate  use 
of  money,  is  war.     This  being  so,  therefore, 
say  some,  open,  declared  war,  according  to 
your  own  showing,  between  peoples,  is  not 
such  a  bad  thing  after  all.     War  is  stimulat- 
ing, is  good  for  the  nation,  means  manliness, 
etc.,    etc.     A    silly,    ignorant    lie,    all   this. 
War  at  best  is  but  the  survival  of  a  state 
of  being  out  of  which  man  must  emerge  and 
is  emerging.     Moreover,  war  brings  all  sorts 


176  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

of  evil  in  its  train.  On  these  I  cannot  en- 
large this  morning;  but  think  of  the  terrible 
suffering  to  the  innocent,  as  those  innocent 
now  suffer  in  Cuba.  Think  sanely,  I  say, 
of  war  and  you  can  be  no  defender  of  it. 
As  I  have  already  said,  war  at  best  is  a 
surgeon's  knife  and  a  knife  used  without 
anaesthetics,  too.  To  follow  my  idea  further. 
Operations  may  not  be  good  things  in 
themselves,  but  they  may  be  absolutely 
necessary.  There  are  worse  things  than 
cutting  out  a  cancer  or  removing  a  diseased 
limb.  Compliance  with  evil  is  worse  than 
war.  Shutting  our  eyes  to  manifest  duty 
is  worse  than  war.  Don't  suffer  any  con- 
fusion in  your  mind  about  this.  These 
things  are  worse  than  war,  they  are  the 
very  poisonous  breath  of  the  disease  which 
ultimately  makes  war  necessary.  They  are 
the  microbe  which  rots  the  soul.  These  are 
the  treacherous,  secret  war,  war  at  its  very 
vilest;  war,  the  villain  that  stabs  in  the 
dark  or  poisons  the  cup. 

More  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  in  this 
land,  some  one  fell  among  thieves  —  it  is 
the  old  parable  of  Jesus  over  again.  His 
skin   was   black   and   he   had   few  friends; 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization         177 

and  stealing,  robbing  him  of  his  man- 
hood and  of  his  right  to  hberty  and 
life  and  happiness,  the  thieves  held  him  fast. 
It  is  none  of  our  business,  said  the  Northern 
and  Western  States,  and  they  kept  repeating 
it  for  long  years.  "The  question  of  slavery 
may  be  all  wrong,  we  admit  it  is  brutal,  we 
admit  it  is  immoral,  we  admit  it  is  cruel; 
but  to  interfere  with  it  is  to  interfere  with 
property."  Now  the  one  fundamental  idea 
of  Anglo-Saxon  law  is  that  it  safeguards 
property,  and  Anglo-Saxon  law  is  the  bul- 
wark of  Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  civilization  is  the  hope  of  the  world. 
Therefore,  we  are  justified,  said  they,  in 
non-interference,  and  the  Church  cried 
"Amen."  And  so  things  went  on,  and 
men  were  gradually  being  blinded  to  an 
awful  sin.  It  was  the  sin  of  confusing  two 
things  that  can  never  be  confused — what 
was  pleasant  and  seemed  proper,  and 
what  was  right.  Property  and  its  safe- 
guards might  seem  for  a  time  to  be  the 
bulwark  of  civilization;  but  if  Jesus  Christ 
was  sent  from  God  to  men,  if  He  had  any 
real  message  for  us,  the  burden  of  it  was 
this:     That  the  safeguards  of  society  were 


178  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

not  to  be  found  in  safeguarding  property 
merely  but  in  making  men.  The  law  of 
Anglo-Saxon  conscience  is  one  thing,  but 
the  law  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  towards 
which  Anglo-Saxon  conscience  is  slowly 
moving,  is  a  higher,  holier,  and  more  lasting 
thing.  The  first  safeguards  property;  this 
is  a  good  and  necessary  thing  enough.  The 
second  creates  men.  There  is  little  fear 
that  property  will  not  be  protected;  there 
is  great  fear  that  our  manhood  may  not 
be  developed.  Law  made  property  safe 
enough  in  Rome,  long  ago ;  but  Rome  fell,  and 
great  was  the  fall  of  it,  when  Roman  citizens 
learned  to  put  their  property  and  their 
luxury  in  the  first  place,  and  the  claims  of 
their  State  in  the  second. 

Some  men,  mere  enthusiasts  the  public 
called  them,  tried  to  say  these  things,  or 
better  things  than  these,  generations  ago. 
They  said  that  to  sit  down  tamely,  con- 
doning a  wrong,  was  to  be  untrue  both  to 
themselves  and  to  their  nation.  They  said 
that  man  was  more  than  property,  that 
property  was  accidental;  that  the  main 
question  was  not  how  much  a  man  or  nation 
had,   but   how  the   man   or  nation   got   it. 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization        179 

And  these  enthusiasts  kept  repeating  these 
things,  in  spite  of  the  contempt  of  the  great 
and  the  stones  of  the  small.  The  clubs 
would  not  have  them,  their  friends  made 
excuses  for  them;  but  to  their  aid  in 
a  little  time  there  came  a  small  group  of 
poets  that  some  people  fancied  were  quite 
the  best  poets  the  country  had.  These 
few  voices  would  be  heard,  would  not  down. 
They  had  their  song  to  sing  and  they  sung  it 
— men  like  Whittier,  Lowell  and  Longfellow, 
just  to  name  a  few — and  they,  in  their  own 
way  told  the  same  story  of  individual  and 
national  obligation.  And  some  politicians 
there  were,  too,  who  said  the  very  worth  of 
the  American  people  and  the  stability  of 
their  institutions,  depended  on  casting  out 
the  thieves,  and  succouring  the  black  men 
that  had  fallen  among  them.  But  great 
as  was  the  combined  protest  of  all  these 
three  parties,  individualism  reigned.  Puri- 
tanism survived  and  Puritanism  had  noth- 
ing to  say  against  slavery.  The  masses 
of  the  people,  belonging  to  a  young  and 
undeveloped  nation,  were  too  busy  with 
their  own  affairs  to  interfere  with  the  affairs 
of  others.     The  one  aim  they  had  was  to 


i8o  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

get  on.  The  golden  flood  of  money  was 
pouring  in.  The  West  remained  to  be  won. 
And  so  America's  priest  and  Levite  came 
and  looked  at  the  man  fallen  among  thieves, 
and  passed  by  on  the  other  side.  It  was 
the  old  story,  the  story  not  that  I  tell  but 
which  Jesus  told — the  wounded  man  had 
to  wait,  and  costly  was  the  waiting.  If 
we  leave  God's  wounded,  be  sure  we  shall 
have  to  pay  God's  doctor's  bill.  Disease 
breeds  disease  and  then  comes  death. 
Slavery  was  moral  typhus,  and  typhus 
spreads.  It  seemed  but  one  small,  dark 
pimple  on  the  fair  young  cheek  of  a  maiden 
nation;  but  the  pimple  carried  in  it  the 
seeds  of  death.  For  an  evil  thing  allowed 
is  not  content  to  hold  its  own;  it  spreads. 

The  policy  of  slavery  and  the  policy  of 
freedom  could  not  combine  any  more  than 
oil  and  water  can  combine,  or  alkali  and 
acid.  And  so  in  time  another  cry  was 
heard  in  the  land;  that  cry  was  separation. 
And  then,  indeed,  things  began  to  look 
serious.  Separation  meant  a  divided  people, 
a  weakened  nation,  a  thwarted  civilization. 
Slavery  was  a  dull  pain,  separation  was  a 
sharp  pain,  and  at  last  the  sting  of  it  roused 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization  i8i 

the  land,  and  the  country  was  awake.  And 
then  there  came  war,  the  bloodiest  of  all 
modem  wars,  because  between  brother  and 
brother.  Father  against  son,  neighbour 
against  neighbour,  South  against  North ! 
Then  were  terrible  and  protracted  battles, 
for  each  was  brave  and  each  was  strong. 
And  even  more  awful  than  these  battles 
were  the  evils  following  in  their  train — 
hideous  prison  pens,  where,  under  the  blight 
of  famine  and  disease,  life  faded  away. 
Man's  heart  was  hardened  against  his  fellow 
man.  A  man's  foes  became  those;  of  his  own 
household.  And  following  still  in  the  foot- 
steps of  that  war  came  the  blight  of  evil 
principles  that  ever  accompany  war — cor- 
ruption, private  and  public,  cowardice  and 
selfishness.  Men  who  should  have  gone 
themselves,  buying  exemption — the  rich 
taking  advantage  of  their  riches.  Then 
the  standard  of  business  morality  fell — the 
scheming  man,  the  dishonest  man  taking 
advantage  of  his  country's  woes  to  steal 
from  his  country — dishonest  contracts — 
those  who  meanly  stayed  at  home,  fattening 
on  those  who  went  to  battle.  Then,  too, 
owing  to  the  stringency  of  money,  evil  and 


i82  The    Reasonableness    of   Faith 

foolish  ideas  became  prevalent  as  to  what 
money  was.  Men  said  it  was  in  the  power 
of  the  Government  to  make  money.  And 
thus  were  laid  deeply  in  the  minds  of  millions 
of  people  the  germs  of  an  impossible  and 
immoral  conception  of  our  public  obliga- 
tions. A  man  must  pay  his  debts  honestly, 
but  a  great  country  need  not. 

Now  pause  with  me.  From  what  cause 
did  all  these  evil  things  arise  ?  Look  straight , 
I  pray  you.  Don't  confuse  secondary  causes 
with  primary  causes.  Don't  confuse  the 
leaves  of  a  thing  with  the  root.  All  these 
evils  came  not  from  war  but  from  the  de- 
liberate condoning  of  an  evil  that  made,  at 
last,  war  necessary.  They  came  from  yield- 
ing to  a  wrong,  yielding  to  a  wrong  for 
comfort's  sake,  giving  in  to  unrighteousness 
so  that  people  might  be  saved  the  trouble 
and  loss  of  driving  it  forth.  This  was  the 
sin  against  God  and  man.  This,  and  not 
war,  was  the  real  cause  of  all  the  train  of 
woes  which  any  man  who  knows  anything 
whatever  of  the  history  of  these  United 
States  is  well  aware  follows  and  followed 
in  the  history  of  our  war.  I  sum  it  up  in 
these  words  of  Jesus.     The  whole,   horrid, 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization         183 

spreading,  blasting  evil  of  it  was  rooted  in 
one  thing,  and  one  thing  alone — and  this, 
standing  in  a  Christian  pulpit,  I  defy  any 
man  to  deny — it  was  the  denial  of  our  duty 
to  our  neighbour,  it  was  the  deliberate 
breaking  of  the  second  commandment. 

But  now  I  hear  someone  say,  "Admitted 
all  this,  there  is  no  parallel  between  the 
condition  of  things  to  which  you  refer,  and 
the  obligations  of  our  people  in  the  past,  and 
this  Cuban  question.  The  Cuban  business 
is  none  of  ours."  Is  it  not?  I  ask  myself, 
What  would  the  Master  say  to  that  ?  I 
turn  back,  I  ask  you  to  turn  back  to  what 
He  did  say.  How  does  He  lay  down  the 
law  of  neighbourly  obligation?  You  own 
Him  as  your  teacher — don't  mind  my 
conclusions — what  are  His  ?  Who  was  neigh- 
bour to  him  that  fell  among  thieves?  The 
priest  was,  the  Levite  was;  but  they  had  so 
successfully  cultivated  individualism,  so 
blinded  their  eyes,  so  hardened  their  hearts, 
so  killed  their  consciences,  that  their  own 
mean  interests  were  paramount,  and  they 
passed  by  on  the  other  side.  But  a  Samari- 
tan, that  is  to  say,  one  whom  the  wounded 
man  had  learned  to  abhor,   one  whom,   in 


184  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

his  religious  service  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
daily  cursing,  one  whom  he  counted  a  worse 
enemy  than  even  the  Romans  themselves — 
he  came  where  he  was,  and  he  saw  not  an 
enemy,  but  a  poor,  forsaken,  crushed,  out- 
raged, dying  stranger,  and  he  had  pity  on 
him.  He  forgot  his  journey,  his  own  safety 
even,  and  certainly  his  convenience.  He 
took  him  on  his  own  beast,  he  took  him  to 
his  own  inn,  he  spent  his  money  on  him, 
he  gave  him  his  time.  He  cast  aside  the 
traditions  and  prejudices  of  his  people  to 
succour  his  fellow  man.  He  had  mercy  on 
him.  And  down  all  the  ages  rolls  the 
command  of  Jesus — Wouldst  thou  please 
Me,  wouldst  thou  really  be  a  man,  go  and  do 
thou  likewise.  We  may  differ  as  to  the 
means  used.  We  may  approve  or  disap- 
prove of  some  of  the  actions  of  the  Presi- 
dent and  Congress.  One  thing,  as  Christian 
men,  I  hold,  we  cannot  do.  We  cannot,  as 
Christian  men,  tolerate  the  statement  that 
the  unendurable  woes  of  Cuba  are  no  busi- 
ness of  these  United  States.  Are  we  blind 
to  what  God  is  doing  in  the  world  every- 
where? Do  we  utterly  fail  to  see  those 
sympathetic   relations  between   people   and 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization         185 

people,  which  are  binding  men  together  all 
over  the  world  ?  Have  we  forgotten  that 
geographically  these  people  are  our  neigh- 
bours ?  More  than  that,  politically  we  have 
declared  ourselves  to  be  in  some  sort  their 
Suzerains,  accepted  them  as  our  wards. 

As  I  have  said  before,  I  am  far  from  advo- 
cating unnecessary  war.  War  is  an  evil 
and  brings  great  evils  in  its  train.  But  again 
I  repeat  there  is  one  thing  far  worse  than 
war,  for  it  is  the  fruitful  womb  from  which 
all  wars  are  bom:  it  is  the  spirit  which 
selfishly,  supinely,  sits  at  home  in  comfort 
and  national  plenty,  when  the  divinely 
given  rights  of  freedom  and  justice  are 
denied  to  our  next-door  neighbour;  it  is 
the  growing,  sluggish  indifference  to  torture 
and  wrong.  This  in  the  eyes  of  God  is  far 
worse  than  war;  for  it  inevitably  leads  to 
wholesale  death,  death  of  the  soul,  and  the 
blasting  and  decay  of  all  that  is  worthy  in 
civilization. 

It  is  not  so  long  since  Armenia  cried  aloud 
to  God  and  men,  and  Europe  heard  her 
wailing;  but  jealousy  and  mingled  fear, 
then,  too,  made  the  priest  and  Levite  leave 
the  dying  Armenian  to  the  Turk  that  still 


1 86  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

robs  and  still  tortures.  European  powers 
were  afraid  of  each  other  and  afraid  of  the 
thieves.  I  ask  you  this  morning  how  did 
you  feel  about  it  ?  You  felt  that  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  was  shamed.  You  felt  that  if 
Turkey  had  seized  one  small  colony  of 
England,  in  that  case  the  thieves  would 
have  had  short  shrift. 

On  this  I  need  not  dwell.  In  our  case 
there  is  no  such  excuse.  We  are  told  that 
in  this  immediate  case,  this  special  poor 
man  may  fall  among  thieves  again,  and 
Cuba  become  a  second  Hayti.  We  are  told 
that  we  will  have  to  look  after  her,  prop  her 
up,  spend  money  for  her,  take  care  of  her; 
in  all  likelihood  we  will  indeed ;  that  is  just 
what  Jesus  said  He  commended  the  stranger 
Samaritan  for  doing.  Our  business  is  to  do 
right,  and  leave  the  consequence  to  Al- 
mighty God. 

I  feel  full  well  this  morning  that  some  of 
you  may  not  agree  with  the  general  princi- 
ples I  have  laid  down;  but  do  not  be  mis- 
taken about  this:  they  are  the  principles  of 
Jesus  Christ.  You  are  not  quarrelling  with 
my  conclusions,  but  with  His  commands. 
The   men   who   are   crying   out,    "It   is   no 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization         187 

business  of  ours,  this  Cuban  trouble!"  are 
mistaken  men.  They  may  think  themselves 
to  be,  but  they  really  are  not,  patriotic  men. 
They  are  not  the  men  most  willing  to  undergo 
hardship  for  God's  cause  or  man's  cause. 
They  are  men  who  have  fallen  into  the  habit 
of  thinking  that  civilization  and  wealth  are 
one  and  the  same  thing ;  and  that  is  a  foolish, 
un-Christian,  unhistoric,  immoral  lie.  They 
are  not  fitted  to  lead  or  represent  a  progres- 
sive people.  Yet  I  thank  God  that  through 
the  length  and  breadth  of  this  land  there  is 
a  marvellous  unanimity  of  feeling  about 
the  righteousness  of  the  issue  before  us. 
We  had  a  war  scare  three  years  ago.  An 
evil  and  wicked  spirit  was  stirred  up  in  the 
land.  Unthinking  and  designing  men,  and 
some  ignorant,  self-seeking  politicians  were 
willing  to  fan  it,  too  often,  I  fear,  for  the 
sake  of  personal  ambition.  If  I  remember 
rightly  it  was  on  a  Friday  that  President 
Cleveland's  message  startled  the  world. 
On  Sunday  almost  all  the  leading  Christian 
ministers  and  almost  all  those  who  direct 
the  universities  of  learning  in  our  country, 
without  any  opportunity  for  mutual  con- 
sultation,   protested    in   the    name    of   God 


1 88  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  civilization  both  against  the  message 
and  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  received. 
Where  are  those  protesting  voices  now? 
I  say  that,  almost  without  exception,  they 
are  agreed  that  the  cause  of  freedom  in  Cuba 
is  the  cause  of  God  and  man.  Almost 
without  exception,  these  lovers  of  peace, 
these  men  whose  lives  and  work  are  their 
record  that  they  abhor  all  spirit  of  blood 
and  strife — these  men  are  agreed.  To  them 
and  to  me  it  appears  that  this  cry  of  the 
weak  and  the  weary  (a  cry  so  feeble  from 
long-continued  torture,  that  it  is  almost 
inarticulate) — this  cry  for  man's  sake  and 
for  Christ's  sake  v/e  must  answer  and  bind 
ourselves  by  solemn  covenant  that  we  will 
suffer  the  evil  thing  that  causes  it  no  more. 

And  lastly,  what  is  the  duty  of  the  hour  ? 

(j).  It  is  to  see  plainly,  and  to  try  and 
make  other  men  see  the  issue  before  us.  It 
is  only  the  other  day  that  Signor  Crispi, 
while  he  openly  avowed  that  his  natural 
sympathies  were  with  the  sister  Latin 
nation  of  his  own  people,  the  Spaniard,  said : 
"Spain  has  committed  monstrous  sins,  and 
she  must  pay  the  price  of  sin."  The  dis- 
appearance of  her  last  greatness  has  come, 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization         189 

the  end  of  an  awful  rule  has  come.  She 
has  slaughtered  God's  saints,  she  has  per- 
sistently stood  in  the  path  of  man's  progress, 
and  from  that  path  she  must  be  swept  aside. 
To  remove  her  from  it  is  our  duty.  Our 
cause  is  as  plain  as  day.  The  issue  will 
appear  as  clear  to  our  children  as  the  issue 
of  '61  appears  to  us.  Good  men  hesitated 
then,  some  good  men  hesitate  to-day;  but 
we  are  not  playing  for  our  own  hand  or 
forcing  a  war  of  conquest.  This  trouble 
that  has  come  to  us  has  not  been  cimningly 
devised  by  anybody.  It  is  the  outcome  of 
an  old  evil,  it  is  the  breaking  forth  of  an 
ancient  and  intolerable  wrong.  We  are 
being  pushed  on  to  do  the  work  of  God  by 
elemental  forces  which  no  politician,  how- 
ever shrewd,  could  create,  control  or  gain- 
say. 

{2).  Steps  taken  by  our  Executive  we 
may  criticise.  Let  us,  however,  not  be  too 
hasty  with  our  criticism  until  we  know  all 
the  facts,  and  these  we  do  not  know  yet. 
We  must  stand  by  those  in  authority,  and  we 
ought  all  to  stand  together  and  stand  as 
one  man.  Our  President  has  surely  proved 
himself  patient,   wise   and   strong,   and  far 


iQo  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

from  lacking  in  that  rare  ability  to  with- 
stand pressure.     Let  us  support  him. 

(j).  We  must  protest  against  this  wicked, 
unchristian,  barbarous  spirit  of  vengeance. 
We  must  denounce  and  oppose  all  such 
unworthy  cries  as,  "Remember  the  Maine!" 
These  Spaniards  whom  we  are  called  to 
sweep  aside  are  scarcely  less  pitiable  in  their 
ignorance,  their  suffering  or  their  destitu- 
tion, than  the  poor  Cubans  they  have 
blighted.  Oh,  think  of  those  poor  Spanish 
boys,  torn  from  their  homes  in  their  teens, 
carried  away  from  their  sunny  valleys  and 
plains  to  wage  a  war  in  which  they  are  not 
interested,  and  to  die  by  tens  of  thousands 
in  a  pestilential  climate !  Think  of  the 
bereaved  homes  of  Spain,  and  who  shall 
dare  to  speak  of  vengeance  ! 

{4).  Let  us  put  away  all  this  mere 
hysteria — it  is  unworthy  of  a  great  people — 
all  this  silly  shouting  over  the  capture  of  un- 
armed vessels  which  an  honest  Government 
will  promptly  restore  to  their  lawful  owners. 
I  say  it  is  entirely  iinworthy  of  a  great  people 
engaged  in  a  great  cause — and  the  cauvse  is 
great.  So  let  the  best  men  go  where  they 
are  needed,  and  let  them  go  quietly.     For  if, 


Our  Duty  to  Civilization        191 

in  these  last  days,  a  great  and  rich  people, 
lapped  in  luxury,  sheltered  from  evil  by  the 
wide  sea,  proved  callous  to  such  a  pitiful 
call,  such  a  plea  for  succour  at  their  door, 
then,  indeed,  it  would  seem  to  me  that  the 
first  sign  had  been  given  that  free  Govem- 
men  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 
the  people,  deserved  to  perish  from  the 
earth. 

May  2,  1898. 


LEANNESS    OP    SOUL 

"He  gave  them  their  request;  but  sent  leanness 
into  their  souls." — Psalm,  cvi:  i§. 

Some  nations  have  no  robustness  about 
them.  They  are  of  the  nature  of  the  na- 
tional fungi,  quickly  sprung  and  quickly 
passed.  Others  have  just  this  quality  of 
robustness — a  certain  constitutional  strength 
by  which  they  refuse  to  succumb  to  the 
evils,  the  forces  of  disintegration,  that  visit 
and  test  all  peoples.  These  are  the  nations 
who  make  history.  The  histories  of  such 
are  peculiarly  valuable  to  us.  We  see 
in  them  the  interplay  of  forces  which  we 
find  still  active  in  our  own  time.  These 
nations  are  our  real  teachers.  And  when 
in  addition  to  this  they  produce,  as  usually 
they  do,  great  teachers,  artists,  poets, 
prophets,  then  they  supply  us  with  the 
very  best  guides  that  we  poor,  doubtful 
men,  living  in  the  tortuous  and  difficult 
pathways  of  our  own  time,  can  know  of. 

No  race,  except  perhaps  our  own  Anglo- 

193 


194  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Saxon  race,  has  so  distinctly  manifested 
so  much  of  this  robustness,  this  national 
strength,  this  peculiar  fittedness  for  living, 
as  has  the  Jewish  nation.  They  have 
national  bone  and  sinew  enough,  as  it  were, 
to  last  out  other  races  and  yet  the  quality 
of  their  life  is  fine  enough  to  leaven  this 
robust  fleshliness  with  spiritual  fire,  purpose 
and  aspiration.  History  with  them,  there- 
fore, is  not  a  mere  repository  of  fact,  but 
fact  ever  viewed  in  spiritual  light.  They 
are  worldly,  but  religious,  too — practical 
and  also  ideal. 

This  old  wilderness  legend  to  which  my 
text  refers  is  an  instance  of  this.  For  our 
purpose,  it  is  altogether  unimportant  whether 
those  quails  were  miraculously  sent,  or 
whether  in  process  of  natural  migration  they 
reached  the  Jews  in  an  hour  of  need,  or 
whether  after  the  visit  of  the  quails  came  a 
miraculous  or  altogether  natural  sickness. 
This  old  preacher,  ascending  the  pulpit  of 
perhaps  three  thousand  years  ago,  with  true 
spiritual  insight  at  once  lays  hold  of  the 
main  point  of  the  story.  The  wilderness 
tradition  serves  to  point  a  great  moral; 
serves  in  his  mind  to  illustrate  a  tremendous 


Leanness  of  Soul  195 

fact.  It  is  this:  "Thou  gavest  them  their 
request,  and  sent  leanness  into  their  souls." 
There  was  nothing  unreasonable  or  wrong 
in  this  request  of  Israel  for  flesh.  It  was 
the  natural  craving  of  hungry  men  fed  for 
too  long  a  time  on  farinaceous  food  ex- 
clusively. But  after  excessive  indulgence 
came  satiety,  and  quickly  passing  from 
the  physical  realm  to  the  spiritual  which  it 
indicated,  with  true  instinct  the  Psalmist 
sees  before  him,  in  the  old  wilderness  story 
of  human  longing  and  human  loathing,  a 
picture  of  the  unsatisfied  yearning  that  fills 
all  his  life.  The  eye  is  not  satisfied  with 
seeing,  nor  the  ear  with  hearing.  Man  can- 
not live  by  bread  alone.  No,  not  though 
it  be  the  very  bread  he  cried  and  craved  for. 
This  following  of  gratified  desire  by 
intense  sense  of  new-begotten  desire,  which 
is  summed  up  in  the  old  word  and  compre- 
hensive— leanness — is  true  of  life.  In  the 
highest  gifts  God  gives,  in  answer  to  the 
most  natural  cravings  man  knows,  there 
springs  up  as  resultant  this  leanness.  This 
property  of  leanness  accompanies  the  grant- 
ing of  longings  that  are  not  only  not  hurtful 
in  themselves,  but  are  most  reasonable  and 


196  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

should  be  entertained.  It  is  in  the  satis- 
faction of  the  legitimate  hunger  for  legitimate 
food  that  we  feel  this  growing  leanness  at- 
tacking us — and  what  is  the  meaning  of  it? 
Look  a  little  closer  and  see  how  true  the 
statement  is,  that  this  leanness  follows 
longings  higher  than  those  for  quail.  Take 
for  instance  one  of  the  highest  forms  of  it. 
It  is  the  very  property  of  all  processes  of 
education  known  to  us  to  give  us  our  re- 
quest and  send  leanness  into  our  souls. 
The  property  of  all  education  is  to  make  the 
educated  want  more;  and  surely  it  is  a 
divine  property;  whether  it  is  the  education 
of  man  in  the  mastery  over  the  physical; 
whether  there  falls  on  him  the  fascination 
of  that  splendid  spirit  of  searching,  which 
God  authorized  to  man  when  He  said: 
"Have  thou  dominion;"  or  whether  man 
pushes  his  exhaustless  search  for  knowledge 
among  other  spheres  than  those  which 
physical  science  offers — in  all  cases  the  more 
absolute,  the  more  signal  his  mastery  is, 
the  more  really  the  wings  of  his  aspiration 
seem  to  strike  against  bars  that  more 
cruelly  draw  themselves  close.  As  in  the 
process   of  man's  development  he  gathers 


Leanness  of  Soul  197 

the  forces  of  dominion  in  his  right  hand, 
there  is  a  new-born  hunger  in  his  heart, 
there  is  a  deeper  emptiness  in  his  soul, 
there  is  a  further-off  yearning  in  his  eye. 
And  he  knows  and  feels,  as  he  mounts  from 
step  to  step,  as  request  after  request  is  satis- 
fied, as  height  after  height  is  measured  and 
ascended — it  is  still  true — leanness  in  his 
soul.  Each  attainment  of  mastery  means 
for  him  the  strife  for  a  deeper  sight,  the 
craving  for  a  newer  and  larger  dominion. 
Truth  is  his  mistress,  and  if  wholly  he  could 
hold  and  possess  her  she  would  lose  for  him 
half  her  charm.  And  therefore,  if  you 
offer  him  truth  in  the  one  hand  and  the 
search  for  truth  in  the  other,  reverently  he 
will  bow  and  take  the  search  rather  than 
the  possession. 

We  are  told  by  some  who  have  not  girded 
up  the  loins  of  their  mind  and  braced  them- 
selves to  pursue  on  lofty  and  sometimes 
dangerous  paths  the  beauty  of  truth — we 
are  told  by  these  that  they  do  not  rise  and 
follow  her,  "Because,"  say  they,  "this 
unsatisfied  and  unsatisfiable  property  in 
life  is  evidence  that  we  are  only  here  to  be 
thwarted.     Why  encourage  a  yearning  which 


198  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

must  be  followed  by  sharper  hunger?"  I 
answer,  our  requests  are  not  thwartings 
merely :  they  are  incitements.  The  very  ele- 
ments of  dissatisfaction  and  incompleteness 
which  mingle  with  them  and  which  forbid 
the  sluggard  to  strive,  supply  the  necessary 
spur  and  stimulus  to  further  effort  which 
the  normal  human  mind  requires.  Men 
whose  environment  is  for  the  time  being  a 
wilderness  environment  would  lose  the  best 
properties  of  their  manhood,  if  they  could 
be  wafted  from  a  quail  feast  to  a  Capua. 

Let  our  conquests  be  won  in  the  school- 
room or  in  Wall  Street,  at  Washington  or 
in  the  laboratory — the  conquests  of  politics 
or  of  science,  in  winning  of  priceless  treas- 
ures from  some  mountain  mine,  or  wringing 
a  new  secret  from  the  half  visible  flickerings 
of  a  star — we  feel  as  we  achieve  them  all 
that  it  is  well  that  they  should  afford  us  but 
a  temporary  platform  for  our  feet,  and  not 
a  meadow  on  whose  soft  breast  we  may  lay 
us  down  to  rest  the  whole  length  of  a  Summer 
day.  We  are  like  climbers  who,  for  a 
moment  on  a  dangerous  ascent,  find  their 
feet  at  last  based  on  some  firm  though 
narrow  jut  of  crag,  and  so  wipe  the  sweat 


Leanness  of  Soul  199 

from  their  brow,  fill  their  lungs  with  in- 
spiring mountain  air  and  once  again  look  up. 
Let  me  take  a  modern  instance,  somewhat 
hackneyed  it  may  be,  though  it  seems  to 
me  peculiarly  valuable  and  useful  to-day, 
because  his  life  was  so  really  a  part  of  what 
we  hold  as  best.  Darwin  confesses  this 
sense  of  leanness  with  a  pathetic  frankness 
that  few  are  great  and  true  enough  to  be 
capable  of.  In  his  autobiography,  he  notes 
down  the  result  on  his  own  disposition 
of  the  tremendous  intensity  of  his  devotion 
to  one  realm  of  research.  Physics  and 
physical  research  had  robbed  him,  so  he 
believed,  of  some  of  his  finest  perceptions — 
music,  colour,  poetry.  He  was  naturally 
but  needlessly  severe  in  his  self-judgment. 
He  could  not  have  been  the  great  man  he 
was  if  he  had  not  accurately  recorded  his 
sensations.  But  if  he  had  drimk  into  the 
source  and  fount  of  the  inspiration  of  Jesus 
Christ,  as  God  grant  he  is  drinking  now,  he 
would  have  known — what,  alas  !  the  wisest  of 
us  forget  again  and  again — that  not  even  sen- 
sations are  verbally  inspired.  There  is  no  such 
thing  on  God's  earth  as  verbal  inspiration, 
either  in  your  sensations  or  in  your  Bibles. 


200  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Darwin  forgot — no  doubt  he  knows  it  now, 
and  knows  it  with  a  new  delight — that  a 
man  has  lost  nothing  that  he  mourns  for, 
any  more  than  he  can  cease  to  love  while 
he  mourns.  The  tear  that  drops  from  the 
eye  of  memory  is  the  evidence  that  memory 
clasps  in  her  soul  arms  the  things  she  mourns. 
This  is  not  fancy;  it  is  deepest  truth.  A 
man  can  not  mourn  lovelessly.  It  is  love 
that  makes  mourning  real.  Those  powers 
are  doubtless  only  laid  aside  for  awhile, 
overlaid  perhaps  a  little,  but  the  steel  of 
our  souls  does  not  decay  because  the  scab- 
bard in  which  we  hide  it  is  rusted  a  little. 

The  more  we  study,  I  think,  the  great 
facts  of  life,  the  more  we  shall  be  assured 
that  many  of  our  worthiest  longings,  long- 
ings by  which  we  rise  toward  the  attain- 
ment of  desires  beneficial  to  ourselves  and 
to  our  kin — the  more  fully  they  are  granted 
to  us  the  more  we  know  a  deepening  himger 
Why  should  it  not  be  so?  'Tis  but  the 
foretaste  of  our  immortality.  'Tis  the  proof 
that  we,  even  we,  are  a  spark  of  God.  Can 
that  spark  go  out?  Can  it  utterly  die? 
Even  in  the  presence  of  One,  all-present,  of 
whom  it  is  said,   "a  bruised  reed  will  He 


Leanness  of  Soul  201 

not  break  and  smoking  flax  will  He  not 
quench,"  He  himself  seemed  to  fear  that 
it  could.  And  hence,  in  loving  warning, 
the  estate  of  man  is  burdened  with  an  un- 
rest meant  to  fan  the  flame. 

There  is  another  leanness,  a  leanness  that 
fails  to  recognize  itself  as  lean,  a  hunger  that 
kills  its  own  craving,  a  cold  so  mortal  that 
he  stricken  by  it  believes  himself  to  be 
warm,  while  life  is  dying  at  the  touch  of 
frost.  The  dying  soul  ceases  to  aspire. 
The  aspirations  and  ideals  of  youth  are 
laid  aside.  Those  early  aims  that  came  to 
us  in  life's  morningtide  are  quite  forgotten. 
That  splendid  and  inspiring  vision  of  life's 
possibilities  that  once  was  ours  has  passed 
and  left  not  a  wrack  behind.  And  what  was 
it  after  all  given  up  for?  Some  poor  quail 
feast,  indeed  !  Birds  of  passage  for  a  passing 
lust !  Some  position  to  be  won,  some  for- 
tune gained,  some  social  ambition  claimed, 
some  prize,  tinsel  or  golden,  snatched  !  And 
for  these,  high  gifts,  persistent  purpose, 
self-denial  that  would  have  been  noble  were 
its  end  a  noble  one,  and  all  the  resources  of 
life  used  up.  Ah,  prayer  itself  prayed  out — • 
for,  "Thou  gavest  them  their  request." 


202  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Where  life  is  fattest  and  fullest,  there  is 
it  most  dangerous.  Oh,  it  is  where  life  is 
fattest  that  the  hot  wrath  of  God  comes  ! 
No  pause  between  His  lightning  flash  and 
His  thunderbolt !  It  is  not  a  jaimdiced 
view  of  life  to  say  that  if  there  is  one  fair 
spot  on  God's  fair  earth  to-day  where  the 
quail-feast  is  being  urged — aye,  even  by 
our  strongest  and  best — it  is  in  our  metropoli- 
tan city.  Until  the  sense  of  hunger  itself 
is  gone,  the  sense  of  distance  from  God  is 
gone,  and  all  that  was  most  precious,  most 
buoyant  in  them  years  ago,  is  gone. 

Yes,  it  is  tremendously  true,  by  virtue  of 
our  own  immortal  nature,  we  must  get  what 
we  want,  we  must  go  where  we  will,  we 
must  be  what  we  aim — for  this  is  to  be  man. 

'A  thread  of  law  runs  through  our  prayers 
Stronger  than  iron  cables  are, 
And  love  and  longing  towards  the  goal 
Are  pilots  strong  to  steer  the  soul. " 

Man  chooses  his  mistress  and  at  last  she  is 
given  him  to  wife.  He  has  his  request.  She 
is  his  very  own  to  have  and  to  hold,  to  test 
and  to  know  thoroughly.  Well  for  him, 
if  there  still  remains  some  sense  of  leanness 
in   his   soul.     Alas !  the   hunger,   the   sense 


Leanness  of  Soul      '  203 

of  leanness  which  is  itself  the  evidence  of 
the  Divine  presence,  which  is  itself  the 
proof  that  God  who  led  us  into  the  wilderness 
will,  by  means  of  loving  and  all- wise  plaguing, 
purge  us  and  lead  us  at  last  out,  does  not 
always,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  survive  the 
marriage  with  its  lust.  So  far  as  we  can 
tell,  there  can  then  in  such  a  case  be  no 
Canaan  for  that  soul.  No  distant  gleam  of 
Eden  can  rouse  a  longing  in  that  eye.  It 
already  hath  the  fulfilment  complete  and 
sufficient  of  its  desire.     Life  for  it  is 

"A  life  of  aspiration   furled, 

Of  self  in  petty  self  deep  curled; 
Amid  the  struggles  of  a  world 

A  narrow  life,  a  dreamless  eye 
That  hath  no  glance  on  earth  or  sky 

Save  for  the  pleasures  passing  by. " 

God  in  His  infinite  mercy  grant  that  we 
may  ever  know  the  incitement  of  a  hunger 
that  bids  us  strive  and  live  and  pray  and 
hope  and  serve,  and  not  in  the  loss  of  it  all, 
taste  the  beginning  of  a  dead — twice  dead 
soul. 

February  21,  1892. 


SACRIFICE    TO    THEIR    NET 

"They  sacrificed  to  their  net,  burned  incense  to 
their  drag." — Habakkak  i:  i6. 

The  simile,  you  will  see,  is  a  fisherman's. 
He  sweeps  the  sea  with  wide  net.  This  he 
uses  for  the  upper  waters,  and  having 
caught  what  fish  he  can  in  these,  he  drags 
his  trawl  along  the  bottom.  With  open 
mouth  and  long  purse  it  catches  everything 
small  and  great.  His  haul  is  enormous, 
and  stupid,  idolatrous  that  he  is,  the  prophet 
warns  him  of  his  danger,  tells  him  he  is  so 
intent  on  his  own  success  that  his  net  and 
his  trawl  have  become  to  him  a  god,  as 
really  a  false  god  as  though  on  the  sea 
sand  he  built  an  altar  and  burned  incense 
before  the  tools  of  his  craft. 

You  will  agree  with  me,  friends  in  St. 
George's,  that  these  closing  days  of  the 
year  shall  be  thoughtful  days,  and  surely 
many  things  have  conspired  to  make  us 
specially  thoughtful  at  the  close  of  1895, 
whether  we  will  or  no.  Now  what  I  am 
205 


2o6  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

afraid  of  is,  that  we  are  not  as  thoughtful 
a  people  as  we  suppose  we  are,  that,  on  the 
contrary,  we  are  more  mercurial  and  less 
intelligently  sober-minded  than  we  ourselves 
would  admit.  We  are  apt  to  take  life  too 
much  by  fits  and  starts.  And  so  I  think  we 
will  do  well  this  morning  to  take  to  heart 
the  words  that  the  great  apostle  spoke 
long  ago  when  he  said :  "I  say,  through 
the  grace  given  to  me,  to  every  man  that 
is  among  you,  not  to  think  of  himself  more 
highly  than  he  ought  to  think;  but  to  think 
soberly."  Sober  thinking  is  timely  and 
necessary,  and  in  it  the  Church  must  lead 
the  world.  And  it  seems  that,  to-day, 
outside  the  Church  as  well  as  inside  it  there 
is  a  concensus  of  thought  among  all  those 
men  who,  without  difference  of  opinion,  we 
should  judge  to  be  sober  minded,  that  we 
in  these  great  United  States  have  a  very 
special  danger,  have  a  strong  tendency  to 
fall  into  a  disastrous  sin — a  danger  which, 
I  think,  is  distinctly  pointed  out,  a  sin 
which  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  text  I 
have  read  to  you. 

Our  idol  is  our  own  success.     This  danger 
which  I  venture  to  point  out  exists  not  alone 


Sacrifice  to  Their  Net  207 

in  the  enthusiastic  mind  of  a  few  religionists ; 
but  go  to  men  who  think  as  well  as  to  men  who 
pray  and  you  find  them  agreed.  Go  to  the 
greatest  living  philosopher,  Herbert  Spencer, 
the  great  poets  of  our  century  on  both  sides 
the  Atlantic — Tennyson,  Browning,  Matthew 
Arnold,  Lowell  and  Whittier — the  great 
literary  men,  or  to  artists,  and  in  art,  poetry, 
literature  and  philosophy  the  warning  is 
repeated:  we  are  in  danger  of  worshipping 
our  trawl. 

This  worship  of  success  sometimes  assumes 
a  grotesque  and  ridiculous  phase,  as  when 
(not  to  go  further  back  than  last  week  to 
find  an  instance)  a  Senator  of  the  United 
States  by  way  of  allaying  the  war  panic 
gravely  rose  in  the  chamber  of  that  delibera- 
tive body  and  moved  that  we,  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  should,  without  any  fur- 
ther regard  to  any  other  people  or  peoples  of 
any  other  land,  proceed  to  the  imlimited  coin- 
age of  silver  at  the  ratio  of  sixteen  to  one.  I 
claim,  of  course,  no  special  knowledge  in 
financial  matters;  but  that  such  a  move- 
ment would  be  a  display  of  folly  is  evident 
to  every  intelligent  public  school  boy. 
Here  the  worship  of  success  is  seen  in  vain 


2o8  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  vulgar  boastfulness,  an  utter  failure  to 
recognize  the  simplest  truths  of  life;  a  for- 
getfulness  that  it  is  not  possible  for  nations 
any  more  than  individuals  to  stand  alone 
and  be  a  law  to  themselves.  God  has  not 
set  us  alone  in  the  earth  to  go  our  own  way, 
regardless  of  the  history  or  experience  of 
the  nations  of  the  earth.  We  cannot  live 
by  different  laws.  No  happy  divinity  spe- 
cially superintends  our  destiny.  It  is  not 
true  that  we  are  quite  unlike  any  other 
people,  much  less  that  we  may  safely  pre- 
stime  on  that  unlikeness. 

Yet  the  spirit  of  so-called  Americanism 
which  finds  an  expression  so  grotesque  in 
the  motion  of  the  Senator,  is  a  spirit  which, 
if  I  mistake  not,  is  widespread  in  our  land. 
It  is  an  unclean  and  evil  spirit  and  if  it  is 
not  driven  forth  by  a  cleaner,  wiser,  and 
in  the  best  sense  holier  spirit,  it  will  yet  work 
us  or  our  children  great  harm.  It  does  not 
always  take  a  form  so  palpably  dangerous 
or  grotesque  as  that  which  I  have  quoted,  yet 
I  believe  it  pervades  our  75,000,000  of  people. 
It  lowers  our  standard  of  national  responsi- 
bility; it  makes  us  careless  and  indiiferent 
often  as  to  our  own  obedience  to  the  calls  of 


Sacrifice  to  Their  Net  209 

public  duty.  It  is  a  sin  of  overconfidence 
in  ourselves,  our  resources,  our  manner  of 
life,  our  methods  of  government.  "There 
never  was  a  net  like  ours,  or  a  trawl  with 
as  big  a  mouth  or  so  long  a  sack;"  and  so 
we  cry  "hurrah,"  and  the  incense  of  a  false 
worship  rises.  The  whole  land  bows  to  the 
great  trawl,  loses  its  head  when  confronted 
with  some  gigantic  success,  and  forgets  how 
the  success  was  won;  marvels  at  some  vast 
fortime,  never  asks  how  it  was  made,  does 
not  indeed  care  so  much  how  it  was  made, 
and  if  a  little  of  it  goes  to  the  public  at  the 
death  of  the  maker,  why,  then,  the  end  is 
certain,  that  vast  fortune  must  be  a  good 
thing  for  the  people,  and  the  man  who  made 
it  could  not  have  been  a  bad  man  or  a  bad 
citizen. 

And  the  natural  result  of  such  mushy 
and  sentimental  thinking  is  this:  that  we 
are  treated  every  now  and  then  to  a  display 
of  vulgarity  on  a  large  scale.  We  laugh, 
sneeringly  at  other  nations  for  their  enjoy- 
ment of  display;  but  let  me  ask  where  on 
earth  would  such  a  wearisome  and  vulgar 
noise  have  been  made — not  by  one  class,  but 
by  all  classes — over  the  wedding  of  two  young 


2IO  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

people,  as  we  with  disgust  and  weariness  en- 
dured this  late  Fall.  I  hold  it  proven  that 
the  worship  of  the  net  is  a  vulgar  worship. 

Furthermore,  the  adoption  of  a  false 
standard  means  the  abandonment  of  a  true 
standard.  Let  success  once  be  a  national 
aim,  and  then  every  consideration  but  suc- 
cess is  laid  aside.  It  makes  the  business 
man  unscrupulous.  It  makes  the  working 
man  reckless  and  destructive.  In  obedience 
to  it,  solemn  contracts  binding  capitalist 
and  labourer  are  torn  up  as  the  interests  of 
either  party  dictate.  In  politics,  national 
honour  and  even  national  well-being  are  for- 
gotten, in  order  to  push  private  ambition. 
And  in  the  field  of  sport  where  gentlemen 
meet  or  ought  to  meet  (will  the  young  men 
in  the  church  bear  with  me,  this  morning, 
will  they  believe  me  when  I  say  I  speak  that 
which  I  know  and  testify  to  that  which  I 
have  seen),  they  do  not  race  or  row  as  they 
did  twenty  years  ago.  The  true  idea  of 
sport,  in  its  right  place  a  healthy  and  ennob- 
ling thing,  is  too  often  laid  aside  in  obedience 
to  this  inexcusable  worship  of  success.  Let 
us  win,  no  matter  what  happens,  strain 
rules  or  alter  rules,  play  with  professional- 


Sacrifice  to  Their  Net  211 

ism,  hunt  over  the  land  to  get  Hkely  athletes 
for  our  college,  pay  men's  way  through, 
pile  up  great  sums  in  our  club  funds — for 
win  we  must.  Yes,  "our  own  company, 
right  or  wrong,"  says  the  business  man. 
"My  own  fortune,  right  or  wrong,"  says  the 
financier.  ' '  My  own  college,  right  or  wrong, ' ' 
cries  the  youth.  "My  own  party,  right  or 
wrong, "cries  the  politician.  And  "our  own 
country,  right  or  wrong,"  cry  we  all. 

What  are  we  saying?  Do  we  remember 
how  near  for  the  Christian  man  this  comes 
to  blasphemy?  Were  you  baptized  in  the 
name  of  your  company,  or  your  fortune, 
or  your  college,  or  your  party,  or  the  United 
States?  I  beg  and  pray  you,  my  brothers 
and  sisters,  let  no  such  talk  as  this  any 
more  pass  unchallenged.  To  be  a  Christian 
means  in  some  small  but  real  sense  to  be 
the  follower  of  Him  Who  said  (and  when  He 
said  those  words  He  gave  us  the  watchword 
for  all  time):  "For  this  cause  was  I  bom, 
for  this  cause  came  I  into  the  world,  to  bear 
witness  to  the  truth."  And  if,  for  any  sake — 
company,  fortune,  college,  party,  interest,  or 
even  country's  sake,  we  take  sides  against 
the  truth,  then  do  we  take  sides  against  the 


212  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

living  Lord  God  of  all  righteousness  and 
right,  and  we  undertake  a  pretty  big  con- 
tract. 

But  yet  a  moment  further.  The  worship 
of  the  trawl  blinds  us  to  reality,  closes  our 
eyes  to  great  truths,  stops  our  ears  to  the 
calls  of  pressing  duty  which  our  very  in- 
terests make  imperative.  In  this  land  of 
ours  are  people  of  good  brain  and  at  least 
average  intelligence ;  but  if  brain  and  intelli- 
gence be  concentrated  on  ourselves  and  our 
own  affairs,  we  shall  not  have  time  to  think 
sufficiently  over  the  affairs  of  those  who 
are  our  immediate  neighbours,  and  in  whose 
success  and  well-being  our  own  is  indissolu- 
bly  connected.  We  are  pursuing,  I  beg  to 
say,  a  dangerous  course  in  relation  to  the 
labouring  class  in  this  country,  a  class  on 
whose  developing  prosperity  the  prosperity 
of  the  whole  community  depends.  Bear 
with  me,  if  you  do  not  agree  with  me.  I 
am  speaking  with  intense  conviction.  The 
labouring  people  in  this  country  need  the 
help  and  sympathy  of  the  church.  How 
shall  it  be  given  to  them,  how  shall  we  aid 
them  ?  All  the  charities,  public  benefactions, 
art  galleries,   museums,   nay,   the  churches 


Sacrifice  to  Their  Net  213 

themselves,  cannot  help  the  labouring  people 
as  they  can  help  themselves.  The  only- 
possible  development  of  any  class  in  this 
country  must  come  from  within.  We  must 
help  them  to  help  themselves. 

Now  what  is  the  note  of  to-day  ?  Here  you 
all  will  agree  with  me — it  is  combination. 
Larger  combinations  and  more  combinations 
are  inevitable.  No  doubt  in  the  end  the 
result  to  the  whole  will  be  good;  but  times 
of  growth  and  change  are  times  of  pain 
and  danger,  and  disturbance  and  unsettle- 
ment  only  imply  that  inevitable  change  is 
making  way.  But  how  shall  the  principle 
of  combination — this  inevitable  principle — 
how  shall  it  have  fair  play  among  all  our 
people?  Only  by  its  application  to  all. 
Let  part  combine,  let  the  strong  and  the 
wealthy  combine,  as  they  are  doing,  and 
let  opportunities  for  combination  be  grudg- 
ingly afforded  or  denied  altogether  to  the 
poorer  and  the  weaker  elements  in  our 
nation,  and  the  unrighteousness  and  wrong 
of  this  will  not  fail  to  produce  widespread 
evil  and  disaster.  I  am  alluding  to  no 
fancied  danger,  but  to  a  very  real  danger 
at  our  door.     I  speak  with  greatest  plain- 


214  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

ness.  I  hold  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Christian 
Church  and  of  Christian  bishops  and  clergy 
everywhere  to  help  and  encourage  the  poor 
people  of  this  land  to  continue  in  and  to 
develop  their  labour  unions.  Only  by 
these  will  they  educate  themselves,  only 
through  them,  or,  rather,  chiefly  through 
them,  will  they  become  truly  American. 
Labour  unions  will  do  more  to  break  up 
multi-nationalism  than  all  the  churches 
can  do.  Let  us  have  the  American  flag  in 
all  the  public  schools,  let  it  stand  for  what 
it  means ;  but  when  the  boys  and  girls  leave 
school  let  us  help  them  to  recognize  that  they 
have  no  chance  whatever  to  assert  them- 
selves and  develop  their  own  education  and 
prosperity  in  the  future,  but  by  recognizing 
the  law — and  it  is  God's  law — of  association. 
I  repeat  again,  if  the  rich  and  the  strong 
find  it  necessary  to  combine,  it  must  be 
evident  to  all  that  there  is  further  and  more 
pressing  need  for  the  poor  and  the  weak  to 
do  so. 

Oh,  things  are  not  always  going  as  they 
should  in  this  country  of  ours,  and  the  time 
has  come  when  we  must  turn  our  attention 
to  other  things  than  the  great  hauls  of  our  net 


Sacrifice  to  Their  Net  215 

and  our  trawl  and  recognize  these  sad  facts. 
We  speak  of  our  liberty,  our  prosperity, 
and  oiir  greatness ;  but  we  forget  the  himdreds 
of  thousands  of  those  who  are  crushed  into 
misery  and  vice.  In  our  own  city  there  are 
many  whose  earnings  for  fourteen  hours' 
work  daily  do  not  amount  to  more  than  a 
dollar  and  a  half  a  week.  England  is  re- 
ducing child  labour  enormously.  Here — 
and  I  know  you  will  be  startled  to  learn  this — 
child  labour  has  absolutely  increased  a 
hundred  per  cent,  in  the  last  fifteen  years. 
There  were  no  tramps  to  speak  of,  twenty 
years  ago,  in  this  country.  The  best  esti- 
mate, perhaps,  says  there  are  probably 
thirty  thousand  in  the  State  of  New  York 
to-day.  In  England,  arrests  for  dnmken- 
ness  have  enormously  decreased;  here  they 
increase.  There  are  more  homicides  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  with  its  6,000,000 
people,  than  in  the  British  Isles,  with  40,- 
000,000.  And  we  cannot  delude  ourselves 
into  thinking  that  the  foreign  populations 
produce  the  criminals.  The  very  reverse 
is  true.  These  few  facts  —  and  they  are 
only  a  few  of  many  that  might  be  adduced — 
surely  are  worth  thinking  about. 


2i6  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Yet  for  the  recognition  of  one  more  I 
plead.  More  thought,  more  time,  more 
teaching  and  better  for  the  children.  Let 
us  give  the  children  of  this  great  city  a 
chance.  I  cannot  close  the  sermons  of 
this  year  without  once  again  pleading  for 
the  children — the  children  that  our  neglect 
in  this  city  has  grievously  wronged  —  the 
children  whom  we  have  left  to  the  evil 
chances  of  politics  —  the  children  whom 
we  are  leaving  in  inadequate  and  often  bad 
schools,  with  no  proper  provision  and  often 
no  provision  at  all  for  physical  or  technical 
training.  Can  we  not  make  time  to  leave 
the  worship  of  the  net  and  the  trawl  and  give 
some  attention  to  Christ's  lambs?  I  tell 
you  we  cannot  do  better  for  the  children, 
till  we  have  intelligent  and  honest  city 
government.  We  cannot  have  that  till  all 
join  to  get  it.  We  shall  not  do  that  till  the 
flower  of  our  city's  manhood  and  youth  live 
and  work  less  exclusively  to  bum  incense  to 
their  trawl. 

It  is  not  pleasant,  my  friends,  to  dwell  on 
these  things;  but  God  knows  I  do  so,  this 
morning,  because  I  believe  in  my  soul  that 
the  man  who  poses  as  a  teacher  of  men  and 


Sacrifice  to  Their  Net  217 

fails  to  do  so  is  either,  to-day,  a  fool  and 
does  not  know,  or  else  a  coward  and  does 
not  dare.  And  I  hold  that  the  worst  of  all 
social  enemies — and  from  such  may  God 
deliver  His  Church — is  the  false  prophet; 
he  indeed  prophesies  deceits. 

Yes,  we  have  a  war  on  hand — what  sort  of 
a  war?  We  have  no  time  so  much  as  to 
think  on  a  wicked  war  that  would  be  a  dis- 
grace everlasting  to  our  nation  and  a  set-back 
to  all  mankind..  But  there  is  a  righteous 
war,  one  in  which  we  may  not  hire  a  sub- 
stitute and  for  service  in  which  let  us,  in  the 
name  of  God,  gird  up  our  wills.  A  war 
from  which,  if  we  shrink  back,  future  ages 
will  proclaim  us  traitors  to  the  great  cause 
of  mankind.  War  against  the  rough  places 
— though  they  be  moimtain  high,  they 
must  be  laid  low.  War  against  the  waste 
wildernesses  of  evil — war  against  ignorance, 
misery,  selfishness  and  sin.  To  this  war 
we  would  pledge  ourselves,  O  God.  So 
through  Thy  grace  shall  we  yet  do  in  this 
broadest  and  fairest  of  Thy  lands  something 
great  for  the  human  race,  and  so  shall  we 
ourselves  be  not  only  the  biggest  and  the 
richest,  but  the  greatest  among  the  nations 


2i8  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

of  the  earth.  Help  us,  then,  we  pray  Thee, 
to  cease  from  the  worship  of  our  net  and  our 
trawl,  and  to  kneel  to  the  Son  of  Man. 

December  29,  1895. 


CLAIMS  AND   DUTIES    OF  OUR  TIME 


"And  the  men  of  the  city  said  unto  EHsha,  Behold, 
1  pray  thee,  the  situation  of  this  city  is  pleasant,  as 
my  lord  seeth:  but  the  water  is  naught,  and  the  ground 
barren. 

"  And  he  said.  Bring  me  a  new  cruse,  and  put  salt 
therein.     And  they  brought  it  to  him. 

"And  he  went  forth  unto  the  spring  of  the  waters, 
and  cast  the  salt  in  there,  and  said.  Thus  saith  the 
Lord,  I  have  healed  these  waters;  there  shall  not  be 
from  thence  any  more  death  or  barren  land. 

"  So  the  waters  were  healed  unto  this  day,  according 
to  the  saying  of  Elisha  which  he  spake."  —  //  Kings, 
ii:  ig-22. 


Here  we  have  the  claim  of  the  community 
on  the  prophet,  and  the  prophet's  answer 
to  that  claim.  Both,  it  seems  to  me,  sug- 
gest to  us  vividly  the  circumstances,  claims 
and  duties  of  our  own  time — society's 
claims  on  us  and  our  best  answer  to  those 
claims. 

The  distinctive  feature  of  our  modern 
life  in  these  United  States  has  been  individ- 
ualism, an  individualism  perhaps  more  vig- 
orous and  in  many  ways  more  complete 
than  any  that  the  history  of  our  race  has 
yet  afforded.  All  things  have  combined 
219 


220  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

to  develop  the  individual.  The  religion 
of  each  nation  is  part  and  parcel  of  its  life. 
Of  necessity  it  fits  that  life  as  the  glove  fits 
the  hand,  and  each  hand  must  have  its 
own  glove.  Hence  our  religious  life  has 
also  been  individualistic. 

Geographically,  we  are  individualists.  The 
bigness  of  our  national  estate  discovered 
in  the  fulness  of  time  and  offering  its  rich 
bosom  to  the  industry  of  man,  when  man 
began  to  be  aware  of  the  limitations  of  his 
condition  in  Europe,  beckoned  him  to  an 
enlargement  of  individual  energy,  offered 
such  rich  rewards  to  him  who  had  manli- 
ness and  wisdom  to  win  them  as  had  never 
been  offered  man  before. 

Politically,  our  institutions  predispose 
us  to  individualism.  The  great  and  wise 
men  who  laid  the  foundations  of  our  free- 
dom were  deeply  impressed  with  the  failure 
of  those  forms  of  government  in  Europe 
that  to  them  represented  repression  of  the 
individual  rights  of  mankind. 

Thus  it  comes  to  pass,  that  the  bigness  of 
our  land,  the  progressiveness  of  our  found- 
ers, and  the  timeliness  of  the  discovery  of  a 
virgin    continent    all    combined    to    give   a 


Claims  and  Duties  of  Our  Time     221 

hopeful  start  and  large  reward  to  the  push, 
energy  and  courage  of  man.  It  is  no  exag- 
geration then  to  say  that  what  we  see  around 
us  to-day  is  chiefly  the  result  of  a  generous 
individualism.  Our  greatness,  our  wealth, 
our  boundless  energy — a  national  expan- 
sion that  never  had  or  is  likely  to  have  a 
parallel  —  all  witness  what  the  intelligent 
individual  can  accomplish. 

Instinctively  I  think  most  intelligent 
men  feel  this  and,  standing  amazed  at  the 
wonderful  results  achieved,  they  are  not 
prepared  to  give  anything  more  than  a  very 
grudging  hearing  to  the  voice  of  any  teacher 
or  any  movement  that  suggests  that  indi- 
vidualism itself  is  not  a  goal,  but  only  a  way 
of  approach ;  is  not  a  final  end,  but  one  of  the 
means  only  to  a  great  end.  And  yet, 
beyond  question,  this  is  all  individualism 
is,  and  to  claim  more  for  it  than  this  is  to 
turn  the  hands  of  progress  backward,  or  to 
seek  to  turn  them  to  read  amiss  the  lessons 
of  the  past  and  the  teachings  of  the  present. 
We  Christians  believe  that  the  life  and 
teachings  of  Jesus  Christ  have  for  their 
object  the  vindication  of  God's  laws  and 
plans  to  men;  and  in  that  life  and  teaching 


222  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

we  find,  as  we  would  expect  to  find,  fullest 
provision  for  individual  development,  and 
yet  at  the  same  time  the  clearest  possible 
sort  of  statement  that  this  is  not  all.  Christ 
declares  the  inalienable  right  of  each  man 
to  self -fulfilment,  to  possession  of  himself, 
to  live  at  his  fullest  and  best,  to  eat  the 
fruit  of  all  his  own  labour  under  the  sun. 
The  right  to  be,  to  think  my  own  thoughts 
unreproved  of  any,  and  so  to  live  that  at 
last  I  may  stand  before  the  Son  of  Man. 
Yes,  stand;  not  cower  or  crawl,  or  even  in 
this  sense  kneel:  but  in  the  fulness  of  the 
consecrated  manhood  of  which  He  in  His 
mercy  has  deemed  me  worthy — stand  be- 
fore the  Son  of  Man,  unrebuked,  approved 
at  last  by  the  Lord  and  King  of  men. 

Let  me  be  explicit  here.  I  do  not  wish 
anything  I  say  should  be  misunderstood  as 
in  the  least  derogating  from  the  importance 
of  individual  development,  and  the  right  to 
the  very  fullest  development  under  the  law 
of  Christ.  But  I  do  say,  beyond  question, 
that  is  not  the  whole  of  His  teaching. 
Any  one  who  runs  can  read  the  significant 
fact  that  larger  ideas  pervade  it.  The 
social  side  of  His  gospel  is  at  least  as  promi- 


Claims  and  Duties  of  Our  Time    223 

nent  as  is  the  individual  side.  The  crown 
and  end  of  all  individualistic  effort  is  found 
in  the  sanctified  and  redeemed  society.  Lib- 
erty there  is,  liberty  everywhere,  but  liberty 
within  society.  The  end  and  aim  of  liberty — 
the  creation  of  the  glorious,  lasting  and 
pure  society,  justifying  all  the  agonies  and 
satisfying  all  the  longings  of  all  the  past. 
Salvation  itself  is  not  the  safety  of  the 
individual  only  or  chiefly.  It  is  the  creation 
of  a  purified  and  stable  social  state.  This 
society  Christ  proclaimed.  Its  law  He  il- 
lustrated and  expounded.  Its  sure  and 
final  triumph  He  predicted.  He  founded 
and  inspired  His  Church  to  be  witness  to  it, 
and  here  on  earth  we  His  followers  are  con- 
secrated and  called  to  make  His  words  and 
promises  good.  How  shall  we  then  dis- 
charge our  duty  to  the  society  and  time  in 
which  we  find  ourselves? 

First,  I  think  we  shall  do  so  by  recognizing 
the  imperfect  nature  of  the  Christianity 
which  these  circumstances  and  times  have 
specially  tended  to  produce.  The  vast  in- 
dividual energy  of  our  people  moulds  and 
profoundly  influences  of  course  the  religious 
life  of  the  people;  and  this  life  is  at  present 


2  24  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

too  individualistic.  It  could  not  but  be  so. 
It  works  too  much  for  its  own  hand,  seeks 
to  achieve  too  much  its  own  fortune,  to  fill 
its  own  mouth,  and  be  its  own  law.  It  is 
hyperprotestant,  in  short.  It  stands  rooted 
in  such  adages  as:  "The  first  law  of  devel- 
opment is  the  law  of  self-preservation." 
No  doubt  it  is  the  first  law,  but  rudimentary 
law,  a  law  that  belongs  in  its  fullest  applica- 
tion to  barbarous  times  and  incoherent 
civilizations.  It  is  the  law  that  gives  claws 
and  teeth  to  the  tiger;  and  strong  hands 
and  feet  to  swing  it  out  of  danger,  to  the  ape. 
But  surely  the  slow  though  almighty  tides 
of  divine  purpose  have  lifted  us  at  least  to  a 
point  where  we  can  see  the  beginnings  of 
the  working  of  some  larger,  higher  law  than 
this. 

Protestant  religions  had  their  root  idea  in 
conscience.  Fidelity  to  conscience  was  the 
motive  power  of  their  splendid  past.  The 
times  were  stormy  and  dark,  and  in  the 
providence  of  God  the  starlight  of  con- 
science was  the  best  light  of  which  the  bulk 
of  men  were  capable.  But  starshine  is  not 
sunshine,  and  it  is  wont  to  be  obscured  by 
dark    clouds.     Conscience    unassisted,    un- 


Claims  and  Duties  of  Our  Time    225 

inspired  by  love,  may  become  a  baleful  fire. 
Strength,  often  pitiless,  characterizes  its 
rule.  It  is  God's  chosen  instrument  to 
dash  in  pieces  and  lay  low  the  evil  growths 
of  time.  It  carries  the  blast  of  destruction 
with  it  often,  and  that  blast  is  indiscrimina- 
ting.  Every  scholar  knows  that  England 
endured  the  enormities  and  follies  of  Charles 
the  Second,  and  for  a  time  James  the  Second, 
rather  than  risk  the  return  to  the  too-iron 
rule  of  a  Puritan  conscience.  Conscience 
ends  in  laws  of  prescription  and  proscrip- 
tion, and  in  a  law  that  cannot  tie  man  to  man. 
Conscience  is  negative  and  delights  in  the 
"Thou  shalt  not."  It  lacks  balance,  discrimi- 
nation, proportion.  It  is  magnificently  brave 
in  the  hour  of  trial  and  never  shrinks  before 
calamity;  but  is  almost  as  pitiless  to  the 
cry  of  the  child  as  it  is  to  the  cursing  of  the 
blasphemer.  It  launches  its  Mayflower; 
but  it  also  burns  its  great  and  good  Servetus 
with  green  wood:  and  the  poor,  foolish 
crones  of  Salem  are  not  too  smallW  despicable 
to  escape  its  vindictiveness. 

Conscience  is  the  very  mainspring  of  the 
religion  of  individualism  and  marks  and 
stamps    that    religion    always    and    every- 


226  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

where,  both  with  its  splendid  powers  and 
its  great  incompleteness.  It  cares  little  for 
the  law  of  love  and  repudiates  its  watch- 
word of  fellowship. 

Now  the  simple  fact  to-day  is,  that  much 
of  the  popular  and  orthodox  religion  preva- 
lent in  our  modern  Protestant  bodies  is  only 
Puritanism  more  or  less  watered  down. 
It  lacks  its  rugged  strength  and  it  suffers 
grievously  from  a  want  of  adaptiveness. 
Not  all  the  preaching  or  writing  or  persecu- 
ting or  heresy  trials  of  those  who  oppose  it 
make  it  fit  comfortably  or  reasonably  on 
the  limbs  of  the  present. 

Of  course  the  chief  reason  for  this  is  plain 
enough.  Men's  thoughts,  instincts  and  aims 
are  more  and  more  consciously  drawing 
them  into  more  involved  and  complex 
social  relations.  The  aim  of  every  good 
man  is  to  help  his  fellow.  There  is  more 
pity  for  the  weak,  more  comfort  for  the 
sorrowing,  more  offers  of  aid  to  the  over- 
burdened, than  ever  before.  Men  no  longer 
willingly  pass  by  the  unfortunate  who  has 
fallen  among  thieves.  They  are  anxious 
to  help  him  and  even  bring  him  to  their 
own  inn  and  put  him  on  their  own  beast,  if 


Claims  and  Duties  of  Our  Time    227 

they  only  knew  how.  And  instinctively 
they  feel  that  this  is  the  best  thing, 
the  most  religious  instinct  within  them. 
They  turn  naturally  to  leaders  and  thinkers 
in  religious  matters  for  vindication  and 
direction:  and  too  often  they  are  met 
by  these  mere  expounders  of  a  more  or  less 
dead  Protestantism,  who  add  to  their  con- 
fusion by  trying  to  direct  the  influences  of 
one  age  in  language  that  altogether  belongs 
and  has  shaped  itself  to  the  impulses  of 
another. 

The  thing  to  do  is  to  get  back  to  Christ, 
to  study  afresh  His  idea  of  what  the  Church 
should  be.  And  as  I  tried  to  say  when  I 
began,  as  we  do  this,  we  find  that  the  well- 
being  of  the  individual  is  subordinate  to, 
and  exists  for,  the  well-being  of  the  body. 
The  idea  of  the  Church  is  the  idea  of  the 
body;  and  this  idea  Protestantism  has 
almost  lost.  It  has  given  us  a  bundle  of 
contending  sects,  each  staking  its  existence 
and  its  reason  for  being  on  some  doc- 
trinal statement  of  truth;  some  partial 
statement  of  a  partially  apprehended  truth. 
There  is  no  platform  for  permanent  unity 
to  be  made  out  of  such  thin,  rotten  boards 


2  28  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

of  perishable  statement,  and  the  moth  and 
the  rust  of  time  find  among  them  congenial 
food.  We  have  surely  to  get  back  to 
the  simple  idea  that  so  splendidly  mastered 
the  eariiest  age — a  body  having  many 
members,  illustrating  one  Christian  law, 
and  standing  for  that  law  against  all  the 
world,  because  the  world  can  only  be 
saved  and  advanced  by  accepting  that 
divine  law. 

My  friends,  believe  me,  I  do  not  seek  to 
detract  from  the  glory  of  the  past,  from  the 
splendid  results  achieved  by  all  that  Protes- 
tant struggle  stands  for,  when  I  speak  thus. 
I  know  something  of  the  costliness  of  the 
effort  which  has  given  us  this  land, 


"Where  girt  with  friends  or  foes 
A  man  may  speak  the  thing  he  will." 


God's  Spirit  gave  that  struggle  birth 
and  guided  it  to  its  triumphant  conclusion. 
Liberty  is  ours,  and  without  cost  to  us  we 
reap  that  on  which  we  bestow  no  labour. 
But  every  age  must  have  its  own  purgatory, 
and  know  its  own  searching,  purifying 
power.  What  we  have  to  achieve  is  not 
liberty,  but  unity;  and  the  struggle  to  win 


Claims  and  Duties  of  Our  Time    229 

unity,  lasting  and  precious,  will  search  and 
purify  us,  as  the  struggle  to  achieve  liberty 
purged  the  dross  from  our  fathers. 

This,  I  conceive,  is  the  claim  that  the 
community  has  a  right  to  make  on  us;  nay, 
the  claim  that  often  unconsciously  the  com- 
munity has  made  and  is  making  on  Christian 
thought.  The  salt  and  saving  power  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ  must  be  put  by  us 
in  the  fountain  head  of  life,  even  as  long  ago 
the  prophet  put  it. 

Briefly,  three  things,  it  seems  to  me,  we 
must  do.  They  are  the  spring  head  of  all 
our  life.  The  Church  must  educate  and 
the  meaning  of  education  must  widen  and 
deepen  for  us  all.  If  I  believe  in  my  con- 
science that  the  purpose  of  God  for  me 
is  to  spend  my  life  in  making  men  see  that 
they  can  only  live  perfectly  with  each  other 
in  obeying  Christ's  law,  this  will  profoundly 
change  my  ideas  as  to  the  way  I  should 
bring  up  my  boys  and  girls.  It  will  no 
longer  be  a  desirable  thing  to  me  to  bring 
up  a  son,  if  I  have  one,  with  the  idea  that  the 
first  end  and  purpose  of  his  life  is  to  make  a 
fortune  or  to  keep  intact  the  fortune  I  give 
him.     To   bring   him   up   with   an   idea   so 


230  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

partial  and  imperfect  as  that,  is  to  do  what 
I  can  to  make  him  a  moral  cripple,  who 
must  limp  behind  and  not  lead  the  thought 
of  his  time.  The  education  that  God  in- 
trusts me  to  impart  to  that  life  of  his,  must 
be  one  that  seeks  to  bring  out  and  lead  up 
all  that  is  best  and  most  helpful  in  his  nature, 
all  that  can  serve  his  generation  best,  be- 
cause it  understands  and  is  ready  to  obey 
its  divinely  ordained  law  of  growth. 

Again,  to  accept  Christ's  law  as  the  law 
for  all  life,  means  to  be  separate,  means  to 
be  vowed  to  a  holy  separateness  from  evil  of 
which  the  most  consecrated  Puritan  scarcely 
dreamed.  The  separateness  proscribed  by 
Protestantism  no  longer  satisfies  us.  It  is 
not  something  merely  done  or  left  undone, 
some  religious  observance  kept,  some  gift 
rendered,  some  creed  repeated  or  profession 
made;  but  we  stand  amazed  and  inspired 
before  the  certainty  and  unalterableness 
of  the  divine  law.  The  law  of  God  is  the 
law  of  the  universe.  The  world  was  made 
to  order,  the  very  atoms  march  to  tune,  and 
I  am  called  intelligently  to  place  my  atom 
life  within  the  splendid  obedience  of  that 
law.     I  came  from  God  and  to  God  I  must 


Claims  and  Duties  of  Our  Time    231 

come — not  part  of  me,  not  a  seventh  of  me, 
not  come  to  Him  in  my  Church,  in  my 
family  prayers,  or  even  at  His  holy  table; 
but  come  to  Him  with  all  my  life,  from  the 
first  cry  of  babyhood  to  the  last  weary  sob 
with  which  the  tired  man  puts  off  his  body. 
With  all  between  these  I  must  come  to  God 
with  the  tale  of  all  I  have  done  or  left  undone 
and  His  law  must  search  me  and  try  me, 
even  as  silver  is  tried  in  the  fire,  and  to  the 
judgment  of  Infinite  Wisdom,  Mercy  and 
Love,  I  must  yield  myself  up.  I  cannot 
escape.  I  cannot  palter — -I  dare  not  if  I 
could. 

Tell  me,  is  this  not  separateness  ?  As  I 
realize  it,  I  get  a  holy  contempt  for  the 
petty  laws  and  maxims  by  which  men  live; 
for  I  know  myself  to  be  a  sharer  in  the  vast 
law  of  God  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ  His  Son. 
So,  too,  as  I  realize  the  forces  that  are  be- 
hind me  and  how  truly  I  am  a  fellow-worker 
with  God,  weak  and  sinful  though  I  be,  I 
can  know  myself  brave  —  brave  to  speak 
that  which  I  hear  from  Him,  bravely  in- 
dependent of  self-interest  or  worldly  policy; 
careless  of  whether  few  men  or  many,  great 
men   or   poor   men,    are   my   associates   in 


232  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

tasks  that  are  divinely  set  and  shall  surely 
be  divinely  crowned.  I  may  only  see  a  few 
yards  before  my  face;  but  I  know  that  the 
forces  of  the  universe  itself  are  obeying  the 
wish  and  will  of  the  King.  That  though  life 
seems  often  a  purposeless  struggle,  yet  amid 
all  its  confusion  and  murk  man  must  at  last, 
since  He  is  the  one  child  of  God,  bom  of  one 
Father  and  heir  of  one  home — must  be 
aware  of  his  brotherhood.  And  that  knowl- 
edge must  profoundly  alter  and  save,  purify 
and  inspire  every  relation  with  his  fellow. 

All  life  is  God's  life,  and  all  law  divine 
law.  Love,  not  hate,  is  at  the  heart  of  things ; 
and  unity,  not  division;  fellowship,  not 
conflict,  shall  be  the  result  of  things.  All 
of  self-seeking  and  self-seekers  must  at  last 
die.  They  who  love  their  own  souls  only 
must  perish;  but  they  who  wait  on  the 
Lord  of  all  love  and  law  shall  renew  their 
strength,  till  at  last  they  shall  dare  to  stand 
crowned  with  a  radiant  and  immortal  man- 
hood before  the  Son  of  Man. 

March,  1892. 


CREATION  AND  THE  FALL 

I  AM  to  try,  this  evening,  my  friends  and 
fellow- workers,  to  say  some  things  to  you 
about  the  Creation  and  Fall.  I  think  we 
might  sum  up  what  we  know  about  the 
first  of  these  in  this  sentence:  Matter  is 
the  cradle  of  spirit.  There  was  a  time,  as 
you  know,  when  it  was  supposed  to  be 
necessary  to  divide  all  creation,  so  far  as 
its  history  is  concerned,  into  definite  and 
clearly  traced  epochs.  Well,  one  thing  at 
least  we  know,  that  the  conclusions  as  to 
the  process  and  method  of  creation  which 
obtained  among  best  informed  people  but  a 
few  generations  ago  are  now  provably 
wrong.  It  is  not  the  business  of  the 
Christian  Church — and  therefore  it  is  not 
our  business  on  Ash  Wednesday  after- 
noon— to  bother  our  heads  about  various 
theories  of  how  things  came  to  be.  What 
we  want  to  do  is  only  to  deal  with  these 
things  so  far  as  in  the  dealing  with  them  we 
will  gain  light  and  help  for  the  conduct  of 
233 


234  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

our  own  lives,  for  the  building  up  and  the 
deepening  of  our  own  faith,  for  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  difficult  work  which  confessedly 
lies  before  us.  I  might  recommend  to  you 
some  books  that  are  interesting  and  in- 
spiring on  the  questions  suggested  by  Cre- 
ation and  the  Fall,  and  you  might  read 
them  with  profit;  but  when  you  have 
read  them  all  through,  and  boiled  them 
down,  it  just  comes  to  this:  the  advan- 
tage to  you — not  intellectually,  but  spirit- 
ually— will  be  an  advantage  that  can  be 
measured  just  by  the  amount  in  which  your 
own  spiritual  life  is  made  to  you  reasonable, 
useful,  purposeful.  There  are  one  or  two 
things  we  may  be  clear  about. 

First,  God  did  not  in  the  past  work  in  a 
different  way,  on  the  whole,  from  the  way  He 
works  in  the  present.  There  is  one  thing 
that  we  are  slowly  coming  to  the  conclusion 
about  with  certitude.  It  is  this:  God's 
work  is  continuous.  He  works  by  certain 
methods.  We  gather  our  experiences  to- 
gether— those  experiences  stretching  over 
perhaps  thirty  centuries  with  which  his- 
tory deals,  scarcely  perhaps  quite  so  many 
as  thirty — and   having  compared  and  tab- 


Creation  and  the  Fall  235 

ulated  our  experiences,  we  call  the  record 
of  them  laws,  and  we  say  God  works  by  law. 
We  merely  mean  by  this,  that  we  have  no 
other  record  of  the  way  God  works  than 
the  records  which  our  experiences  for  a  few 
centuries  have  enabled  us  to  gather.  As 
we  study  these  records,  we  see  an  in  variable- 
ness in  God's  way  of  working.  We  see  a 
continuity — one  thing  leads  to  another. 
We  see  that  God  does  not  work  by  jerks 
and  fits  and  starts;  but  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word  His  work  is  orderly.  We  do  not 
mean  by  this  that  God  does  not  employ 
the  sudden  forces  any  more  than  He  em- 
ploys His  slow  forces;  He  employs  both. 
To  illustrate.  A  storm  is  a  sudden  force. 
An  earthquake  which  strikes  us  as  some- 
thing absolutely  instantaneous  is  instantane- 
ous only  from  our  standpoint.  Ages  and  ages 
have  been  preparing  it.  And  so  the  fact  that 
we  see  sometimes  a  suddenness  in  God's 
(I  am  speaking  now  of  the  physical  uni- 
verse) revelations  of  Himself  in  the  phys- 
ical universe  does  not  a  bit  mean  —  ex- 
cept we  see  in  a  very  childish  way — that 
God's  power  is  broken  up,  but  simply  that 
the  processes  of  what  we  speak  of  as  in- 


236  The   Reasonableness   of   Faith 

finite   slowness   have   at   last   made   them- 
selves evident  to  us. 

When  we  come  to  think  of  our  relation- 
ship to  created  things,  we  have  got  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  the  very  same  laws  or 
record  of  experiences  which  obtain  in  cre- 
ated things  obtain  among  ourselves.  We 
cannot  expect  to  live  in  a  world  which  took 
millions  and  millions  of  ages  to  bring  it  to  a 
certain  point,  and  then  by  any  crying  and 
praying  on  our  part  to  suddenly  change  it. 
There  are  lots  of  people  who  seem  half  the 
time  at  feud  with  the  work  God  has  given 
them  to  do.  They  want  those  forces,  that, 
in  the  infinite  wisdom  of  God,  made  them 
what  they  are,  to  suddenly  change  things 
for  them.  It  is  specially  the  peculiarity  of 
an  active  age.  There  is  no  God  or  hope 
or  eternity  for  us  anywhere,  except  we  see 
God  working  always  and  every  day.  And 
if  that  is  so,  how  silly  for  us,  instead  of 
remembering  that  we  are  but  fellow-workers 
with  God,  to  start  out  to  work  after  our 
own  idea.  Ah  !  friends,  that  may  sound  to 
some  of  you  a  far  away  theory;  but  it  is  a 
working  theory.  It  is  all  very  well,  so  long 
as  the  trend  of  daily  life  happens  to  suit  our 


Creation   and  the   Fall  237 

emotions  for  the  time  being,  but  when  it 
strikes  athwart  the  current  of  our  wishes 
and  suddenly  the  sun  goes  in  and  the  flowers 
bloom  no  more,  and  the  sweetness  dies  out 
of  life's  breeze,  then  we  want  a  change,  and 
cry  and  wail  because  we  cannot  have  things 
the  way  we  want  them. 

If  we  do  not  see  that  God  is  as  truly  in 
the  wind  that  blows  and  whistles  arotmd 
our  life's  tree  as  in  the  breeze  that 
spreads  its  boughs  to  the  Spring  air,  we 
have  not  got  a  working  faith  to  carry  us 
through  life.  It  is  all  very  well  when  life 
is  at  high  tide  and  youth  at  the  helm  and 
each  little  wave  seems  a  reflected  smile  of 
God — but  we  cannot  live  always  that  way, 
because  life  must  put  on  its  dark  and  dull 
face  for  us  and  must  put  its  heavy  hand  on 
us,  and  the  sorrows  of  others,  as  dear  Long- 
fellow said — "Do  more  than  cast  a  pitying 
shadow  over  us;" — for  we  are  part  of  the 
world,  its  sorrow  and  joy,  its  passion  and 
pain,  part  of  its  great  throbbing  life.  Woe 
to  us,  if  we  cannot  see  it,  that  that  life  is 
ruled  by  God.  Peace  to  us,  if  we  know, 
that  neither  things  present  nor  things  to 
come  can  make  it  anything  else  but  ruled 


238     The  Reasonableness  of  Faith 

by  God.  God  won't  work  in  jerks  spiritu- 
ally with  us  any  more  than  He  will  work 
so  physically.  The  things  that  we  do  are 
part  of  His  purpose,  the  things  that  we  suffer 
are  part  of  His  will,  the  tasks  on  which  He 
sends  us  are  chosen  tasks.  And  yet,  there 
exists  in  us,  just  by  virtue  of  the  position 
we  hold  in  creation,  that  wonderful  likeness 
to  God  which  means  the  independence  of 
each,  that  we  are  not  bound  down  to  any 
tasks,  not  tied  by  fetters  to  any  duty. 

Take  a  simple  illustration.  It  helped  me. 
Columbus  four  centuries  ago  sailed  across 
the  deep,  and  since  then  ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand  keels  have  followed  in  his 
wake;  and  every  keel  drove  its  own  furrow, 
every  helmsman  had  to  hold  his  own  rudder 
true.  Millions  of  hands  spread  the  sails, 
sometimes  in  the  cold  and  bitter  blasts.  A 
thousand  times  ten  thousand  men  with  ex- 
pectant eyes  looked  across  the  sea  to  catch 
the  first  sight  of  land.  They  were  all  fol- 
lowers of  the  first  great  discoverer.  That 
is  one  way. 

There  is  another.  That  is  man's  way  of 
doing  things.  He  sets  to  work  with  spade 
and    blasting    powder    and    riven    rock    re- 


Creation  and  the  Fall  239 

spends  to  his  blow.  A  broad  pathway  is 
opened  in  the  land,  and  on  a  narrow  space 
iron  rails  are  laid  down  and  on  them  men 
put  narrow  cars,  and  the  cars  are  put  on 
wheels,  and  each  wheel  has  got  its  flange, 
and  each  flange  clasps  its  steel  rail,  and 
each  car  is  linked  with  its  coupling  to  the 
potency  of  the  engine  and  that,  obedient  to  a 
lever,  rushes  impetuously  on,  and,  without 
wreck  and  ruin,  the  car  cannot  leave  the 
rail  or  the  flange  slip  from  its  steel  grip. 
Impetuously  and  irresistibly,  beyond  all 
choice  of  its  own,  the  iron  horse  does  its 
work  and  drags  across  the  face  of  earth 
the  will,  the  purpose,  the  toil  of  man.  That 
is  the  way  in  which  man  works  for  his  end — 
useful  and  necessary  in  itself. 

But  it  cannot  be  the  way  he  directs  his 
life.  It  is  the  way  he  is  called  on  to  exer- 
cise his  will,  the  way  he  conquers  nature, 
the  way  in  which  God  whispers  to  him  of 
his  likeness  to  Himself.  But  in  his  higher 
law  of  being,  in  the  working  out  of  the  destiny 
of  his  own  immortality,  he  has  got  to  be  the 
discoverer,  who,  with  trembling,  cold  hand, 
with  questioning  eye,  with  aching  frame,  with 
peering  glance   tries   to    follow  other  great 


240  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

discoverers,  and  not  simply  the  pounding 
carriage  back  of  the  irresistible  power 
bound  by  an  iron  chain  to  a  dull  track. 

Follow  out  the  simile  and  you  get  some- 
thing, it  seems  to  me,  of  the  idea  in  which 
we  stand,  brothers  and  sisters,  to  the  things 
around  us.  We  are  not  bound  as  cars  to 
engines.  We  are  laid  as  keels  in  the  stormy 
sea  by  the  men  who  discover  the  continent 
to  which  they  go,  each  making'  its  own  voy- 
age, each  steering  its  own  ship,  each  trying 
to  get  to  its  own  goal,  each  guided  by  its 
own  star,  with  this  difference,  that  for  those 
who  bravely  follow — as  the  hymn  puts  it — 

"  All  journeys  end  in  welcome  to  the  weary." 

We  have  clearly  to  recognize  the  fact 
that  while  God  allows  us  to  possess  these 
instinctive,  directing  powers,  they  never  mas- 
ter us  in  the  blind  way  in  which  the  engine 
drags  the  truck.  They  do  serve  as  guides 
and  general  directors  of  life.  That  is  the 
relation,  it  seems  to  me,  in  which  we  stand 
to  created  things.  All  creation  obeys,  first 
of  all,  without  hesitation  and  without 
sin.  It  has  no  power  to  do  aught  else  but 
trundle  after  the  fiat  of  God  drawn  by  ir- 


Creation  and  the  Fall  241 

resistible  force  to  a  goal  of  which  it  is  in- 
sensible but  which  may  be  very  good- 
Such  cannot  be  our  work.  There  comes 
from  the  tremendous  and  mystic  likeness 
which  we  have  got  to  God  that  which  links 
us  to  Him  in  purpose,  or  allows  us  to  divorce 
ourselves  from  Him — the  possibility  of  un- 
righteousness in  order  to  the  possibility  of 
righteousness. 

We  do  not  want  to  ignore  the  fact  that 
everything  in  God's  universe — His  very 
dust — exists  for  a  purpose,  exists  as  the 
result  of  God's  act.  There  are  a  great 
many  people  to-day  who  have  a  sort  of 
hopeless  idea  that  the  universe  somehow 
came  to  be,  long  ago,  by  the  will  of  God,  and 
every  now  and  then,  like  a  meddling  friend, 
He  puts  His  fingers  down  to  see  that  the 
old  ball  rolls  in  even  groove.  That  simply 
leads  to  atheism.  The  wise  and  reverent 
long  ago  felt  it  could  not  be  so.  As  Emer- 
son says: — 

"God  of  the  granite  and  the  rose, 
Soul  of  the  sparrow  and  the  bee, 
The   ceaseless  tide   of  being  flows 
Through  countless  channels,  Lord,  from  Thee. 
It  leaps  to  life  in  grass  and  flowers, 
Through  every  stage  of  being  runs; 
While  from  creation's  radiant  towers 
Its  glory  shines  in  stars  and  suns." 


242  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Some  people  turn  away  from  that  sort  of 
idea  and  say  that  it  is  Pantheism.  That 
is  all  wrong.  It  is  extraordinary  how 
people  fail  to  see  that  Pantheism  does  not 
mean  that  God  is  in  everything.  On  the 
contrary,  Pantheism  says  that  everything 
is  God.  To  use  a  simple  illustation,  Pan- 
theism says:  "I  and  my  clothes  are  one. 
My  coat  is  I."  Paulinism  says,  Christian- 
ity says:  "God  clothes  Himself  with  light 
like  a  garment;  but  the  light  is  not  God." 
Do  not  be  afraid  to  hold  on,  in  these  days, 
when  the  immensity  of  creation  is  opening 
up  to  us  the  blessed  thought  that  God's 
clothing  is  what  you  see.  He  is  in  it. 
Every  outline  of  it  speaks  of  the  majesty 
of  His  proportions.  To  use  again  a  physical 
illustration,  every  beam  of  it  speaks  of  the 
Divine  Soul  within.  Every  beauty  of  it 
hides  and  veils  a  greater  beauty. 

You  remember  the  old  legend.  How 
true  it  is  of  truth  here.  They  say  truth 
first  of  all  appears  as  only  a  shadow  to  those 
who  seek  it,  a  shadowy  form  that  brings 
with  her  some  suggestion  of  purity,  of 
aspiration,  of  infinite  desire.  And  then, 
after  years,  the  man  seeks  her  with  single 


Creation    and   the   Fall  243 

eye  and  more  self-sacrificing  purpose,  and 
the  shadow  becomes  more  substantial — to 
the  ancients  that  was  the  outline  of  the 
gods.  And  then  still  from  his  hands  there 
drop  things  that  have  grown  insignificant 
and  unimportant  to  him,  and  he  lays  still 
aside  every  weight  and  gives  himself  up 
still  more  to  the  pursuit  of  truth,  and  at 
last  he  sees  a  glorious  woman  before  him. 
And  as  years  go  on,  from  time  to  time  she 
lifts  her  veil  and  gives  him  a  glance  from  her 
starry  eyes.  And  he  still  pursues  her,  for 
he  knows,  in  the  far  beyond,  that  he 
shall  possess  her,  and  have  her  for  his  very 
own. 

How  exquisitely  true  of  what  God  is ! 
First  a  shadow,  then  a  veil  partially  drawn, 
then  a  glowing  face,  and  then  a  possessed 
life.  That  is  not  Pantheism;  it  is  only  the 
veil.  We  have  got  to  hold  it  fast.  There 
is  nothing  else  to  bring  us  face  to  face  with 
truth  to-day.  All  that  is,  is  of  God.  Noth- 
ing exists  but  by  His  permission.  Nothing 
is  held  together  but  by  His  holy  will.  He 
is  in  all,  or  the  all  could  not  be.  He  must  be 
in  pain  and  death  as  He  is  in  life.  And, 
therefore,  as  David  said  long  ago,   God  to 


244  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

him  was  as   much    in   hell   as   He  was  in 
heaven. 

One  more  thought  about  this,  one  sug- 
gested by  creation.  This  being  so,  why  is 
it  that  all  nature  seems  to  be  given  up  to 
expression?  Everything  expresses  itself. 
The  flower  is  the  expression  of  the  root. 
The  grass,  the  expression  of  the  earth. 
The  blue  sky,  the  expression  of  the  sun- 
light. So  the  sea  and  so  on.  But  when  I 
look  into  myself,  there  seems  to  be  another 
law.  Why  is  it  that  I  cannot  get  this  ex- 
pression? Why  is  it  that  again  and  again 
I  am  under  constant  and  ceaseless  repres- 
sion that  is  my  daily  duty?  Why  must  I 
get  up  in  the  morning  and  feel  I  cannot  ex- 
press what  I  have  got  to  express?  My 
whole  hope  to  do  and  be  good  is  to  keep  the 
cork  in  life  and  repress  myself.  Here  is 
the  lesson  creation  teaches.  How  many 
ages  the  world  we  see  took  before  it  found 
its  expression  !  They  said  long  ago,  that  it 
took  seven  days;  we  know  better  now. 
Later,  they  said  it  took  seven  ages;  we 
know  better  now.  Later,  they  said  per- 
haps it  took  seven  millions  of  years.  We 
know  now  that  we  have  no  arithmxctic  by 


Creation   and   the   Fall  245 

which  the  ages  could  be  traced.  The  world 
went  on  before  the  birds  sang  or  the  flowers 
bloomed — ages  and  ages  were  laid  in  pain 
before  the  completion  of  nature  which  you 
look  on  with  delight  could  be  yours  to 
teach  you.  Oh,  what  infinitude  of  years 
had  each  to  make  its  own  deposit  and  live 
its  own  life !  What  time  it  took  before  the 
grass  of  earth  grew  to  the  glory  of  man  ! 

Can  we  foolishly  think,  that  if  it  took 
ages  and  ages  and  ages  to  make  this 
bulb  of  creation,  we  are  going  to  get  the 
flower  of  man  in  a  week?  That  he  is  going 
to  blossom  out  here  into  all  God  intended 
him  to  know  and  do?  Science  is  going  to 
come  as  the  voice  of  God  and  say,  "Thus 
saith  the  Lord. "  You  people  who  want 
the  full  expression  of  your  life  before  you 
are  thirty,  thirty  millions  of  years  may  pass 
before  you  get  the  full  expression  of  your 
life — the  life  that  came  from  and  goes  to 
God. 

"All  things  that  the  Father  hath  are 
mine:  therefore  said  I,  that  he  shall  take  of 
mine,  and  shall  shew  it  unto  you."  Jesus 
Christ  Himself  says  that  every  single  thing 
which    the    Creator    Father    had    was    His. 


246  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

The  simile,  you  know,  is  the  first-bom  son. 
The  first-born  son  got  the  inheritance. 
The  end  and  object  of  creation  —  what 
is  it?  It  is  to  give  to  the  Son.  He 
is  speaking  of  creation  as  it  affected 
Christ.  Here  is  a  whole  world,  perhaps  a 
whole  bunch  of  races — all  that  the  Father 
hath  given  to  His  Son.  The  end  of  creation, 
the  purpose  and  meaning  of  it,  that  He 
should  enter  into  it  and  possess  it.  O 
friends,  when  we  grasp  what  that  means ! 
That  God  has  given  over  everything  to 
Christ,  that  through  all  His  members, 
through  all  His  weak  children,  through  all 
the  different  co-operative  parts  that  go  to 
make  His  body,  the  possession  of  God  may 
come.  Thus  we  find  Him  spoken  of  again 
and  again  as  the  First-bom  among  many 
brethren — leading  out  these  brethren,  show- 
ing what  the  purpose  of  their  life  is,  ex- 
plaining what  their  future  is  to  be.  The 
brethren  existed  to  produce  Him — that  is 
what  it  amounts  to.  If  we  could  grasp  the 
meaning  of  that !  Man  existed  to  produce 
Christ — the  First-bom  among  many  breth- 
ren. The  family  idea  existed  to  produce 
Christ.     We  go  back  a  little  bit  and  we  say, 


Creation   and   the   Fall  247 

just  in  the  same  way,  matter  existed  to 
produce  mind.  Then,  it  seems  to  me,  you 
get  some  idea  of  the  co-partnership  of  things. 
All  God's  vast  world-matter  existing  at  last 
to  produce  a  thought — something  that  was 
able  to  enter  into  the  secret  of  the  Divine 
and  share  His  rule.  All  God's  vast  world  of 
men  existed,  that  there  should  rise  at  last 
a  flower  from  the  midst  of  them  capable  of 
explaining  to  them  all  the  purpose  of  the 
existence  of  all  of  them. 

Just  as  you  see  a  boy  bring  home  a  round, 
ugly  root  and  put  it  in  a  glass  jar,  and 
through  the  hole  in  the  bottom  the  long 
trailing  roots  depend  into  the  water,  and 
it  looks  like  a  thing  without  life  or  beauty. 
But  as  weeks  and  months  pass  there  springs 
from  it  the  waxy  greenness  of  a  stem  and  a 
pyramid  of  buds,  and  at  last  it  bursts  into 
a  bouquet  of  sweetness.  Jesus  exists  in  His 
sweetness,  in  His  life,  in  His  power,  in  His 
beauty,  in  His  divinity,  to  explain  to  the 
bulbs  of  men  their  purpose,  their  value — 
their  God. 

Again,  there  was  a  round  bulb  of  earth 
which  seemed  impossible  of  life — rough, 
torn,   rent  with  internal  convulsion.     Ages 


248  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

pass — will  it  ever  be  anything  but  a  lifeless 
ball  ?  At  last  there  came  a  shoot,  and  there 
shot  forth  a  strange  thing  called  life.  And 
again  it  shot  forth  a  strange  thing  called 
beauty.  And  still  again  it  shot  forth,  and 
there  was  a  stranger  thing  called  man.  All 
those  ages  the  bulb  existed  that  man  might 
come,  and  for  untold  ages  man  existed  that 
Christ  might  come.  And  everything  lifts 
itself  up  when  it  looks  at  that  last  flower  of 
creation,  and  says — "Why,  life  is  worth 
living  that  Christ  may  come!" — and  that 
is  the  meaning  of  Creation. 

And  what  is  the  meaning  of  that  strange 
struggle  of  life  called  in  Genesis  the  Fall? 
In  the  moral  sphere  there  must  be  a  parallel 
to  the  physical.  That  is  all  I  understand 
about  it.  Physical  excellence  is  only 
achieved  by  struggle.  Moral  excellence  is 
only  achieved  by  struggle.  There  is  no  other 
way.  You  have  got  to  have  the  possibility 
of  sin  that  you  may  have  the  power  of 
righteousness.  You  have  got  to  forego  in- 
nocence, that  you  may  have  character.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  Bible,  as  I  understand  it, 
nothing  in  the  teaching  of  Christ  to  the 
Apostles,  which  makes  it  necessary  for  me 


Creation   and   the   Fall  249 

to  believe  that  men  were  ever  better  than 
they  are  now.  Men  never  fell  consciously 
from  a  higher  state  into  a  lower.  Their  fall 
was  only  a  change  of  experience.  There  is 
no  other  way  in  which  men  could  be  men 
but  by  sharing  the  law  that  went  to  make 
the  bulb  blossom.  The  very  principles 
under  which  the  bulb  must  blossom  effected 
all  blossom,  effected  the  blossom  of  the 
planet,  the  blossom  of  the  race,  the  blossom 
of  the  man,  the  blossom  of  the  God-Man. 
Jesus  would  not  live  a  different  life  from  us. 
How  did  He  get  His  holiness.  His  perfection  ? 
By  pain  and  death.  He  had  to  die  as  He 
had  to  be  bom.  He  learned  obedience- 
how?  Only  by  one  way — suffering,  the  law 
of  the  bulb  to  the  lily,  the  law  of  the  planet 
to  man,  of  man  to  God. 

Created  us  that  we  should  be  conformed 
to  the  image  of  His  Son  through  all  the 
falls,  through  all  the  cataclysms,  physical 
or  moral.  We  ourselves  know  the  rising  of 
the  bulb  life  into  the  lily. 


WHOSOEVER  SHALL  SEEK  TO   SAVE 
HIS    LIFE    SHALL   LOSE    IT 

"Whosoever  shall  seek  to  save  his  life  shall  lose  it: 
and  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  shall    preserve    it." 

— St.  Luke,  xvii:  jj. 

At  least  eight  times,  with  slightly  vary- 
ing emphasis,  Jesus  Christ  gave  this  thought 
to  His  disciples.  It  was  difficult,  it  seemed 
contradictory;  they  did  not  understand  it. 
I  do  not  think  we  understand  it  to-day. 
The  Church  has  failed  not  so  much  for 
want  of  zeal  or  charity,  or  even  from  com- 
prehensiveness;  but  more  largely,  I  believe, 
from  want  of  adaptability  than  anything 
else — the  faith  of  adaptability,  the  faith  that 
believes  in  the  truth  given  her — and  so 
confidently  assured  of  that  truth  that  she 
goes  forth  under  the  direction  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  to  adapt  herself,  age  by  age" — adapt 
her  teaching,  her  worship,  her  methods  her 
formularies  of  doctrine,  to  the  growing, 
and  so  to  the  changing  needs  of  mankind. 
That  is  the  faith  that  the  Church  has  lacked, 
which  I  believe  we  lack  to-day. 
251 


252  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

I  do  not  think  any  of  us  can  do  much 
good  in  the  world  except  we  find  out  what 
that  one  good  thing  is  that  God  wants  us 
to  do.  It  is  not  given  to  many  men  to  do 
many  things.  It  is  given  to  all  men  and 
women  to  do  some  things;  and  the  one 
thing  I  think  we  want  to  try  to  do  is  to  find 
out  the  thing  that  God  has  given  us  to  do. 
Let  each  man  speak  for  and  judge  himself. 
The  one  thing  I  believe  God  has  given  me 
to  speak  about,  to  work  for  persistently, 
with  such  strength  as  I  have  got,  is  this 
gospel  of  adaptation— is  to  tell  men,  as  I 
believe  it  to  be  a  message  from  the  living 
God,  that  faith  in  God  has  no  fear  of  the 
changes  which  God  himself  must  work 
under  His  law  of  life,  which  is  a  law  of  ever 
changing  adaptation.  A  man  may  work 
till  he  dies,  yet  if  he  does  not  adapt  his  tools 
to  his  toil  he  will  achieve  little.  He  does 
not  take  a  rake  to  open  a  coal  mine,  nor 
does  he  set  about  tending  a  violet-bed  with 
pick  and  dynamite.  And  just  so  in  the 
work  which  God  has  given  His  Church  to  do. 
She  may  not  lack  faithful  men,  nor  learned. 
Money  may  be  at  her  disposal,  prestige 
behind  her  efforts;  but  if  she  have  not  faith 


Whosoever  Shall  Seek  His  Life  253 

enough  to  adapt  herself  to  the  times  in 
which  she  Hves,  she  will  fail  to  witness  as 
the  voice  of  the  living  God  to  those  times. 

We  are  trying — we  have  tried — to  adapt  to 
our  little  corner  of  the  great  world  near 
our  church,  our  teaching  and  methods  and 
service.  We  believe  that  the  public  salva- 
tion— I  use  the  word  in  its  widest  sense — 
the  well-being  of  city,  of  state  and  of  the 
imion  itself,  depends  on  the  acceptance  of 
our  gospel  by  the  people  at  large.  If  we  do 
not  succeed  in  commending  the  truth  for 
which  we  are  professors  to  the  age  in  which 
we  live,  it  does  not  matter,  to  my  mind,  in 
what  we  do  succeed.  In  home,  in  school,  in 
city  and  in  state,  in  business  and  commercial 
life,  in  law  or  in  the  Senate,  there  can  be  no 
steady  advance,  there  can  be  no  permanent 
prosperity,  unless  all  of  these  institutions 
are  builded  on,  supported  by,  the  princi- 
ples of  Jesus  Christ.  Do  you  realize  this 
is  revolutionary  doctrine?  I  do  not  think 
you  do;  none  of  us  do.  At  most,  we 
have  at  times  but  an  inkling  of  how  revo- 
lutionary it  is.  Individual  salvation  was 
not  Christ's  aim  on  earth,  must  not  be 
the  Church's  aim  now.     I  have  said  noth- 


254  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

ing  tending  to  make  little  of  individual 
salvation.  It  is  the  beginning  of  God, 
not  His  end.  The  saved  man  is  saved 
that  he  may  strive  for  the  saved  society. 
A  mere  truism,  you  say.  Yes,  but  a  truism 
which,  if  accepted,  revolutionizes  our  prac- 
tice. 

One  of  the  deadliest  of  the  weapons  of  evil, 
one  of  the  most  successful  in  opposing  the 
kingdom  of  God,  is  to  make  men  believe 
in  a  salvation  that,  though  true  in  letter, 
is  lying  in  spirit,  which  so  uses  the  word  of 
the  gospel  as  to  deny  the  spirit  of  its  Christ. 
As  Shakespeare  long  ago  put  it, 

"Be  those  juggling  fiends  no   more  believed 
Who  palter  to  tts  in  a  double  sense, 
Who  keep  the  word  of  promise  to  our  ear 
And  break  it  to  our  hope.  " 

We  call  on  Christ  to  save  our  souls,  and 
under  our  breaths  pray  that  He  may  let  our 
lives  alone.  We  have  praised  a  Christ  and 
prayed  to  a  Saviour  who  long  ago  did  all 
things  for  us,  while  we  half  inwardly  hope 
that  He  will  not  demand  too  much  of  us  in 
personal  self-denial  or  action.  And  so  a 
scheme  of  salvation,  as  it  is  called,  dubbed 
with  His  ever  blessed  name,  has   too  often 


Whosoever  Shall  Seek  His  Life   255 

become  a  thing  to  sneer  at.  And  not  merely 
sneerers,  but  many  honest,  God-loving  souls — 
feeling  how  utterly  alien  it  is  to  the  mission 
and  purpose  of  Jesus,  and  yet  deeply  dis- 
trustful of  their  own  ability  to  state  the 
things  which  others  state  falsely  in  terms 
that  are  more  true  and  more  forceful — sadly 
turn  away  from  a  church  they  feel  no  longer 
represents  the  ideals  and  purpose  of  the 
Saviour.  I  do  not  scruple  to  say  that 
much  that  passes  under  the  name  of  re- 
ligion to-day  is  a  hollow  and  blasphemous 
sham. 

What  is  the  evident  cause  of  failure  in  our 
life  to-day?  We  are  a  people  where  each 
man  works  for  himself,  each  for  his  own 
hand  chiefly  or  only.  The  surpassing  temp- 
tation of  our  land,  our  institutions,  our 
new,  undeveloped  country,  with  its  freedom 
of  egress  and  ingress,  and  its  vast  capacities, 
is  to  lure  each  man  on  to  work  for  his  own 
hand.  Amazed  at  our  own  temporary  suc- 
cess, drunken  with  the  prospects  of  growing 
fortune,  we  forget  that  a  people  and  a 
society  where  each  man  works  for  himself 
alone  cannot  be  made  to  hold  together. 
Egotism  is  the  sin  of  the  hour — self-seeking 


256  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

the  infidelity  of  to-day.  And  so  long  as 
religion  does  not  interfere  with  these  our 
plans  and  purposes,  we  welcome  it,  and, 
welcoming  it,  make  it  a  blasphemous  per- 
version of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 
However  it  keeps  the  word  that  is  promised 
to  our  ear,  it  breaks  it  to  the  world's  hope; 
and  holy  God  and  honest  man  will  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it. 

The  God  of  nations  has  called  aloud  to 
us  to  cease  mocking  Him,  to  cease  our 
worship  of  gain.  We  are  in  danger  of  be- 
coming a  nation  of  money-makers,  a  nation 
which  honours  money-makers  because  they 
are  money-makers,  and  for  no  other  reason, 
I  say  it  advisedly  —  men  honour  the  man 
who  makes  money  badly  and  makes  lots 
of  it,  more  than  they  honour  the  man 
who  makes  money  honestly,  makes  money 
so  as  to  help  his  fellow-man,  but  makes 
little  of  it.  We  depend  on  money  for  every- 
thing. We  are  prepared  to  put  so-called 
Christian  money  to  almost  any  use — willing 
to  put  it  even  to  a  bad  use,  in  order  to  win 
great  ends — good  ends  the}^  would  call  them. 
And  so  under  conditions  like  these,  life  must 
become  one  long  contest,  business  nothing 


Whosoever  Shall  Seek  His  Life  257 

more  than  an  effort  to  outwit  each  man 
his  fellow.  It  has  become,  in  short,  as 
most  of  you  know,  too  often  little  better 
than  a  great  gamble  where  successful  players 
are  successful  because  they  throw  with 
loaded  dice. 

Briefly  let  me  repeat,  I  say  nothing 
against  those  blessed  old  doctrines  which 
we  learned  at  our  mother's  knee.  A  reason- 
able, humble  hope  in  individual  salvation 
each  of  us  may,  nay,  should  entertain. 
Those  teachings  of  Jesus  which  convey  to 
us  this  priceless  blessing  are  fraught  with 
larger,  not  lesser  meanings  as  the  times 
roll  on.  We  pray  to  Him  that  in  His  mercy 
we  may  be  saved,  coimted  worthy  of  sharing 
His  everlasting  life;  we  pray  for  the  re- 
mission of  our  sins.  But  let  us  not  blind 
ourselves.  We  cannot  commend  our  Lord 
to  others  by  any  mere  acceptance  of  these 
precious  truths.  We  cannot  escape  our 
duty  in  this  existence  by  solacing  ourselves 
with  comforting  visions  of  what  may  await 
us  in  the  next.  We  dare  not  seek  simply 
to  safeguard  our  life  in  this  world,  while 
we  let  all  that  Jesus  proclaimed  to  be  His 
Father's    legacy    to    men    be    denied    and 


258  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

trampled  under  foot  by  the  greedy  crowd 
which  is  striving  at  any  cost  for  money. 
His  promises  are  not  empty  promises,  His 
laws  not  visionary  laws. 

"Whosoever  shall  save  his  life  shall  lose 
it:  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  shall  pre- 
serve   it."     Such    words    cannot    be    mis- 
taken.    Go    not    away,    this    morning,    my 
friends,  saying,  "Ah!  it  is  beautiful,  but  a 
dream;  a  vision  that  gleams  as  the  rainbow 
gleams,  and  then  vanishes  away."     No,  it 
is  the  very  truth  of  the  immutable   God. 
He  whispers  it  to  you  in  your  conscience; 
He  presses  it  on  you  by  all  the  teachings  of 
experience.     And   by   a   louder   voice   even 
than  these   God  is  calling  on  us  to-day — 
the  voice   of  events   present   and   pressing. 
Deaf,  blind  and  sodden  indeed  of  soul  must 
the  man  be  who  does  not  hear  these  voices. 
Let  us  go  on  seeking  chiefly  each  man  his 
own  pleasure,  power,  wealth,  and  we  are  a 
people  undone.     Yes,  and  for  all  our  profes- 
sions, however  loudly  we  chant  our  creeds  or 
beautifully   celebrate   our   worship,    we   are 
a  people  that  know   not   Christ  and   obey 
not  His  law.     He  will  be  with  us.  He  will 
strengthen  us.  He  will  lead  us  forw-ard;  but 


Whosoever  Shall  Seek  His  Life  259 

only  if  we  follow  Him:  and  following  Him 
through  all  the  confusions  and  doubts  of  the 
present,  duty  will  grow  fairer  and  plainer 
day  by  day.  And  through  the  growing 
capacities  of  a  great  and  a  growing  people, 
we  shall  devote  ourselves  as  fellow-workers 
with  the  Christ  to  change  the  life  of  this 
our  country  until  it  is  more  according  to 
His  will;  to  bring  not  merely  prosperity 
after  any  mundane  conception  of  it,  but  the 
very  life  of  God  which  is  the  life  of  man  to  the 
acceptance  and  realization  of  mankind. 

And  so  while  we  have  time  and  energy 
and  voice  and  strength,  let  us  struggle  for  a 
fairer  day,  a  purer  state,  a  nobler  manhood, 
and  a  firmly  united  people. 

November,  1896. 


GOD'S    IMAGE   IN    MAN 


"And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image, 
after  our  likeness:  and  let  them  have  dominion  over 
the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and 
over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the  earth,  and  over  every 
creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the  earth. 

"So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the 
image  of  God  created  he  him ;  male  and  female  created 
he  them." — Genesis,  i:  26-2J. 

"Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth 
not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be:  but  we  know  that, 
when  he  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like  him;  for  we 
shall  see  him  as  he  is." — /  John,  Hi:  2-j. 


The  same  story  at  the  beginning  and  at 
the  end  of  the  Bible.  God  could  have 
created  a  world  painless,  sinless,  pure, 
with  seas  of  glass  and  skies  of  unchanging 
azure,  a  world  where  struggle  and  death 
never  enter,  a  world  of  unruffled  calm. 
He  could,  too,  have  called  into  existence 
beings  fitted  for  that  undisturbed,  reposeful 
land.  But  one  thing  He  could  not  do, 
though  He  be  Almightiness  itself — He  could 
not  rear  men  in  such  a  world.  For,  how- 
ever our  knowledge  of  ourselves  may  cause 
us  to  distrust  ourselves,  to  deplore  what  we 
have  been,  or  to  fear  what  we  may  be, 
261 


262  The    Reasonableness    op    Faith 

we  are  coming  more  and  more  to  believe 
that  man  is  a  little  God — God  in  minature, 
God  in  embryo — that  we  are  set  here  as  seeds 
to  grow  into  plants,  put  into  earth's  ground  as 
cuttings  to  grow  into  fruit  trees  fair  and 
useful;  put  here  as  infants,  through  storm 
and  stress,  to  attain  the  fulness  of  man- 
hood ;  beings,  moreover,  who  carry  in 
their  souls  the  divine  instinct  of  rule;  and 
since  they  are  her  rulers,  earth  must  offer 
them  but  a  rugged  breast.  She  will  yield 
them  nourishment,  but  only  on  compulsion. 
The  old  fable  of  the  Roman  she-wolf  has 
got  the  true  secret  of  manhood's  struggle 
at  the  root  of  it — a  race  born  to  rule  must 
be  reared  by  an  unkindly  nurse.  Only  as 
they  squeeze  her  cruel  breast  can  they  grow 
strong.  And  so  for  the  rulers  of  the  future. 
For  them  the  sea  prepares  her  storms;  for 
only  by  ruling  her  can  they  become  lords  of 
the  ocean.  And  when  man  seeks  to  woo 
him  a  bride  more  beautiful  than  sea  or  land 
can  be — Knowledge,  his  would-be  partner, 
turns  from  him  her  averted  face,  and  he 
only  wins  her  by  toil  more  arduous,  that 
entails  a  keener  suffering,  than  to  the  con- 
queror of  earth  or  sea.     And  so  the  story 


God's  Image  in  Man  263 

runs  far  back  as  we  are  able  to  trace  it,  far 
into  the  future  as  we  may  imagine  it.  Life 
itself  is  only  to  be  held  and  enjoyed  at  the 
cost  of  ceaseless  care  and  toil.  The  school 
down  here  is  a  hard  school,  and  very 
surely  we  know  that  there  is  no  room  within 
nature's  great  school-room,  wide  as  it  is,  for 
the  inefficient,  the  vicious  or  the  lazy. 

Yet,  friends,  let  us  look  clearly  at  this 
matter.  What  matters  it?  What  school 
can  be  too  hard  for  those  who  are  destined 
to  share  powers  that  to-day  we  call  divine? 
What  matters  it  that  the  struggle  be  fierce, 
that  wherever  we  turn,  whatever  progress 
we  propose  to  ourselves,  our  way  seems  to  be 
walled  up;  that  physically  I  hold  my  life 
as  a  challenge  against  death  on  all  sides; 
that  intellectually,  painfully,  step  by  step,  I 
rise  above  my  ignorance?  Morally,  I  only 
overcome  the  beast  within  by  an  unceasing 
struggle  that  wrings  from  me  many  a  groan ; 
for  there  are  two  natures  within  me,  and  I 
am  torn  first  one  way  and  then  the  other, 
and  this  desperate  strife  rests  on  me  more 
heavily  than  the  others — the  moral  strife. 
Are  these  three  realms  of  strife  not  suffi- 
cient?    Can  any  further  struggle  await  me, 


264  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

as  I  pass  on  toward  fuller  development? 
Yes,  assuredly,  there  is  even  a  fourth.  In 
my  advancement  as  a  social  being,  terrible 
conditions  of  conflict  lie  ahead.  My  higher, 
my  more  finally  adjusted  relations  to  my 
fellow  man  are  only  to  be  won  as  my  physi- 
cal, intellectual  and  moral  prizes  are  won — 
at  the  cost  of  perpetual  vigilance  and  self- 
denial.  A  social  strife  awaits  us  all.  Where 
it  shall  lead  us  we  do  not  know.  What 
sacrifices,  what  travail  pangs  it  may  bring 
forth,  God  only  knows.  But,  O  beloved, 
let  us  meet  the  future  with  faith  in  God  and 
a  big  heart.  Let  us  gird  up  the  loins  of  our 
minds  to  face  whatever  struggle  God  may 
send  to  our  race — a  struggle  not  to  be 
avoided,  but  courted  by  the  sons  of  God. 
And  now  at  once  arises  the  question: 
Is  there  anything  in  life  that  can  justify 
this  fourfold  struggle?  Is  the  prize  that 
life  offers  me  worth  such  a  contest?  How 
shall  we  answer  this  question? 

If  we  are  proposing  to  ourselves  the  likeli- 
hood of  continuing  our  self-appointed  toil 
in  the  future,  we  naturally  ask  ourselves 
how  our  race  has  fared  in  this  regard  in  the 
past;   and,  as  we  search   into   the   subject, 


God's  Image  in  Man  265 

we  are  confronted  with  some  extraordinary 
truths.  We  see  that,  beyond  question,  a 
mere  instinct  to  Hve  has  tided  our  race 
over  the  most  difficult  times.  When 
life,  according  to  our  estimate,  was  most 
worthless,  when  it  was  held  by  the 
slightest  thread,  when  awful  plagues  and 
pestilence  threatened  it  with  obliteration 
(just  as,  to-day,  a  whole  part  of  the  Hindoo 
nation  will  be  swept  away  by  the  inter- 
fering hand  of  God),  and  the  conditions 
of  living  were  so  hard  that  man  might  be 
said  to  have  fared  worse  than  the  beasts — 
this  strange,  this  all-compelling  instinct  to 
live,  upheld,  like  a  life-belt,  the  race.  Men 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  take  their  lives. 
No  combination  of  hunger,  or  misery,  or 
desperate  oppression  justified  the  sin  of 
suicide.  Only  when  their  women  were 
shame-stricken,  or  their  warriors  conquered, 
could  the  barbarian  admit  that  self-sought 
death  was  other  than  a  shame.  This 
fact  of  an  instinctive  determination  to  live 
is  among  the  most  wonderful  that  an  in- 
creasing knowledge  of  the  past  yields  to  us. 
But  to-day  there  is  a  certain  looseness  in 
the    sense    of    responsibility    to    life.     We 


266  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

feel,  everywhere,  that  men  do  not  condemn 
the  suicide  quite  as  strongly  as  they  used  to. 
We  are  passing  from  one  method  of  thought 
to  another.  We  are  beginning  to  see  that 
we  must  justify  our  lives  to  ourselves  by 
other  means  than  that  of  instinct.  We  are 
discovering  new  thoughts,  new  truths  about 
our  life,  and  these  seem  at  first  to  teach  us 
that  the  prize  is  not  worth  the  running. 
There  is  no  question  about  it,  I  think,  that 
this  new  knowledge  coming  to  men  has 
this  effect — it  loosens  old  ties,  it  has  not 
yet  time  to  knit  new  ones,  and  in  the  interval 
you  have  got  to  face  doubt,  fear,  uncer- 
tainty and  disintegration.  Instinct  has 
carried  us  on  to  our  own  age,  or  almost  to  it ; 
but  to-day,  beyond  question,  we  are  aware 
that  instinct  alone  is  not  sufficient:  it  must 
be  reinforced.  And  the  question  has  got 
to  be  answered,  where  shall  we  from  human 
experience  and  human  knowledge  find  sup- 
port for  our  desire  to  live  and  grow  at  any 
cost?  Instinct  must  be  justified  by  the 
clearing  light  of  reason. 

Now  here,  at  first  sight,  new  knowledge 
seems  to  contradict  this  old  and  most  virile 
impulse    of    living    at    any    cost.     It    says, 


God's  Image  in  Man  267 

with  considerable  insistence,  I  must  shatter 
your  dream.  You  have  dreamed  of  a 
golden  age  behind  you — far  behind.  Such 
an  age  never  existed.  Aye,  says  pitiless 
and  remorseless  truth,  as  your  golden  dream 
has  faded  into  the  dim,  you  have  dared  to 
transform  it  into  one  of  a  golden  age  before 
you — I  tell  you  it  never  can  exist.  It  never 
can  exist,  for  the  world  that  has  seen  your 
rise,  has  contemplated  your  painful  struggle, 
the  world  whose  children  you  are,  which 
has  been  your  cradle  and  must  be  your 
tomb — it  is  not  a  young,  but  an  old,  gray 
world  already.  Its  heart  beats  more  slowly, 
year  by  year;  nay,  it  is  owing  to  its  dying 
vitality  that  you  can  live  on  it  at  all.  As 
you  point  forward  towards  a  golden  age, 
the  earth  slowly,  but  steadily,  decays 
beneath  your  feet.  The  chill  of  age  is 
creeping  over  its  bosom  already.  Its  central 
fires,  on  the  permanence  of  which  your 
existence  depends,  must  at  last  die  at  its 
heart.  And  then  earth  will  care  not  for 
you,  nor  even  for  your  race.  Noth- 
ing can  remain  of  all  your  strivings, 
aspirings,  prayings,  but  a  small,  outworn, 
cold,  dead  planet,  on  which  grows  no  green 


268  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

blade  of  grass,  on  which  ebbs  and  flows  no 
life-giving  sea,  a  lonely  and  a  dead  thing, 
so  far  as  man  is  concerned,  rolling  purpose- 
lessly through  space — the  deserted  and 
ruined  home  of  a  race  that  has  risen  wonder- 
fully, striven  marvellously,  stood  for  a 
brief  time  with  a  hope  nothing  less  than 
divine  in  its  eyes,  and  at  last  sunk  to  the 
dust  from  which  it  came  forth.  This 
is  probably  all  true.  And  when  these  facts 
are  held  up  to  instinct,  instinct  begins  to 
tremble  and  people  begin  to  commit  suicide. 
The  man  that  loses  his  money  blows  out 
his  brains.  Even  the  child  that  is  corrected 
at  home,  in  some  cases  in  this  country,  puts 
an  end  to  its  little  life.  How  can  mere 
instinct  meet  such  terrible  disclosures  ?  The 
old  virile  strength  that  held  the  barbarian 
to  his  life  is  gone,  and  the  new  strong  strength 
that  makes  us  feel  that  life  is  worth  living 
has  not  yet  fully  come.  Why,  instinct  is 
trembling  before  the  unconscious  revela- 
tions of  nature,  and  the  fact  that  the  golden 
age  is  doubtful  makes  man  doubtful  of 
himself.  He  feels  the  breath  of  the  coming 
time  whispering  to  him  that  the  world,  as 
the  old  Bible  puts  it,  and  the  things  that 


God's  Image  in  Man  269 

are  within,  must  suffer  change — even  as 
the  dead,  dry  leaf  falls  from  the  tree.  There- 
fore, in  view  of  this  new  knowledge,  the 
impulse  and  stimulus  of  instinct  is  quite 
insufficient,  and  instinct  is  breaking  down. 

To  the  assistance,  then,  of  instinct  comes 
religion,  and  religion  tells  us  that  it  is  true. 
The  struggle  were  not  worth  what  it  costs, 
if  the  hope  of  our  life  ended  here ;  if  all  that 
is  noble  and  all  that  is  base  ends  together 
with  the  passing  of  that  brief  hour,  in  the 
history  of  a  briefly-lived  planet  which  we 
call  earth.  Since  now  are  we  the  sons  of 
God,  we  can  without  fear  steadfastly  behold 
the  dissolution  of  the  cradle  of  our  race, 
wherein  for  a  little  time  we  have  been 
rocked  as  babes  are  rocked.  Long  ere  it 
falls  to  pieces  we  have  outgrown  it.  As 
well  suppose  our  life  is  ended  with  this 
earth,  as  suppose  our  time  of  strength  and 
vigour  is  past  because  we  have  worn  out  a 
suit  of  clothes.  And,  moreover,  repeating 
these  truths  which  man  has  always  ventured 
to  believe  as  of  quite  vital  importance, 
Christianity  appeals  to  us  not  in  its  own 
name  only,  but  in  the  name  of  all  relig- 
ions,   wherever   hope    has    risen,    wherever 


270  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

civilization  has  advanced,  wherever  man- 
hood has  revealed  itself  as  pure  and  brave 
and  holy — there  in  all  ages,  in  all  countries, 
in  all  religions,  in  some  sort  at  least  this 
being  has  dared  to  believe  he  is  a  son  of  God. 
And  because  related  to  a  force  infinitely 
vaster  and  more  permanent  than  that 
limited  to  a  planet  life,  man  may  be,  man 
must  be,  as  Tennyson  so  triumphantly 
sings : — 

"Ancient  of  the  earth, 
But  in  the  morning  of  the  times. " 

Man's  life  is  not  pinned  or  dependent  on 
any  planet  existence — for  he  is  a  son  of  God, 
and  because  he  is,  his  life  goes  on  and  on 
forever. 

"Let    go    the    breath! 

There  is  no  death 
To   the   Hving   soul,    nor   loss,    nor  harm. 

Not    of    the    clod 

Is  the  life  of  God: 
Let  it  mount,  as  it  will,  from  form  to  form." 

Yes,  religion  distinctly  confirms  what  is 
highest  and  best  in  the  instinct  of  man- 
kind. We  are  sons  not  of  the  universe,  but 
of  God,  who  controls  and  is  author  of  the 
universe.  Sons  in  a  gray  universe,  if  you 
like,  for  as  Kingsley  says, 

"  Gray  weather  makes  strong  men. '' 


God's  Image  in  Man  271 

But  sons  with  a  future  dependent  not  on 
their  cradle,  but  on  their  Father  God. 

"All  mine  is  thine,"  the  sky- soul  saith; 
"The  wealth  I  am,  must  thou  become; 
Richer  and  richer,  breath  by  breath, — 
Immortal  gain,  immortal  room!" 
And   since   all   his 
Mine  also  is, 
Life's  gift  outruns  my  fancies  far, 
And  drowns  the  dream 
In  larger  stream. 
As  morning  drinks  the  morning-star." 

So  instinct  and  reHgion  agree ;  but  still  we 
have  not  answered  for  knowledge.  What 
has  this  great  inflood  of  new  thought  and 
conception  and  experience  to  say  to  these 
old  religious  sanctions  that  man  never  has 
been  without  ?  How  does  knowledge  fortify 
both  instinct  and  religion,  or  does  it  fortify 
them  ?  That  is  the  question.  Yes,  I  believe 
it  is  only  the  language  of  moderation,  of 
reasonable  certitude  to  say,  to-day,  that 
the  main  trend  of  modern  knowledge,  of 
scientific  acquirement,  is  to  cry  amen  to 
the  instinct  of  the  future  life  so  deeply  im- 
planted in  man's  soul;  is  to  encourage  and 
fortify,  and  not  contradict,  those  mysterious 
voices  that  so  continuously  have  sounded 
within  him.  It  is  as  though  earth,  our 
mother,  stooped  over  and  in  her  cradle  song 


272  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

was  bent  on  assuring  us,  that  as  her  life 
grows  gray  and  feeble,  we  must  infinitely 
outlive  her. 

But  I  must  not  speak  in  metaphors. 
What  lesson  of  hope  for  the  future  can  we 
gain  from  our  increased  knowledge  of  the 
past  ?  I  want  to  put  this  part  of  my  subject 
in  a  sentence  or  two,  and  then,  if  I  may, 
briefly  amplify  it.  How  did  our  life 
come  to  be  at  all?  How  did  all  the 
beauty  we  see,  the  music  we  hear,  the 
knowledge  we  have  won,  come  to  be? 
I  tell  you,  my  friends,  science  speaks 
on  these  points  with  no  uncertain  voice. 
She  claims  authority,  and,  claiming  it,  she 
makes  on  us  a  stupendous  demand.  She 
expects  us  to  accept,  almost  without 
question,  the  truth  of  a  miracle  so  great 
that  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  all  the  miracles 
of  revelation  are  trivial  by  the  side  of  it. 
Science  distinctly  teaches  us  that,  as  I  have 
said,  all  the  beauty,  music,  knowledge,  that 
go  to  make  up  what  we  understand  of  life 
to-day,  has  come  out  of  a  swirling,  formless 
hurricane  of  fiery  cosmic  matter,  and  noth- 
ing else— out  of  a  chaos  so  dark  and  rude, 
out  of  a  blast  so  awful  and  death-dealing, 


God's  Image  in  Man  273 

that  not  even  to  an  educated  imagination  can 
its  fury  be  conceivable.  In  that  long 
agon  of  chaos  death  reigned,  not  life.  Chaos 
ruled,  not  order.  Then  were  enthroned 
powers  surely  utterly  diabolic.  Any  sane, 
over-looking  intelligence,  any  man  even  of 
genius,  who,  from  some  distant  point  of 
vantage,  might  conceivably  have  surveyed 
that  chaotic  storm,  could  have  believed 
nothing  less  than  that  he  was  hearing  and 
seeing,  in  its  awful  confusion  and  roaring 
turmoil,  nature's  articulated  curse.  In  vast 
spaces,  uncontrolled  and  uncontrollable,  the 
fiery  hurricane,  with  purposeless  fury,  prom- 
ised to  rage  forever.  So  ages  passed  and 
were  followed  by  other  ages,  and  some  sort 
of  order  grew,  till  in  the  sublime  language  of 
the  Bible,  in  the  centre  of  dense  vapour  earth 
lifted;  but  it  was  without  form  and  void, 
and  darkness  was  on  the  face  of  the  deep. 
What  has  love  or  wisdom  to  do  with  such  a 
gray,  lifeless  world  as  this? 

Then  other  ages  passed  and  forth  from  the 
ocean  depths  there  came  forms  of  life, 
grotesque  and  awful,  which  lived  but  to  de- 
stroy. What  has  love  and  wisdom  to  do 
with  such  a  world  ?     Then  other  ages  passed, 


274  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  lo  !  Man  at  last  stood  upon  his  feet. 
But  what  a  man  !  Is  he  a  man?  Perhaps 
he  can  lift  hands  of  prayer,  but  they  are 
red  with  blood.  He  is  dimly  aware  of  his 
better  self,  if  he  be  aware  at  all.  He  is  surely 
likest  far  to  the  beasts.  Cruel  and  lustful 
is  he,  living  on  earth,  far  yet  from  ruling  it, 
barely  holding  his  own  against  savage 
beasts  and  threatening  hunger,  and  without 
love  or  faith  or  much  hope — just  the 
blind  instinct  to  live  keeping  him  alive. 
What  has  love  and  wisdom  yet  to  do  with 
such  a  world,  or  such  a  product  of  the 
world  ? 

I  have  not  time,  I  need  not  go  on  to  tell 
the  oft-told  tale  of  man's  later  progress, 
his  defeats,  his  shames,  the  far  ebbings 
in  the  tide  of  his  advance,  the  fair 
hopes  of  men  and  of  nations  cast  down 
and  betrayed,  of  civilizations  at  last 
built  up  with  much  toil  and  blood, 
only  to  crumble  into  the  dust  again  and 
forever  be  lost  and  forgotten.  But,  for 
all  these  pitiful  changes,  the  most  careless 
student  can  now  conceive  a  rising  in  life's 
scale,  a  growing  towards  a  fuller  self-con- 
sciousness,  a  widening  of  the  certainty  of 


God's  Image  in  Man  275 

responsibility,  a  vast  increase  of  the  sense  of 
pity,  and  a  steady  determination,  even  when 
storms  are  at  their  height,  to  keep  Hfe's 
tiller  true.  Night  is  not  yet  passed,  nor 
are  the  storms  yet  over;  but  who  could  ever 
have  dreamed,  in  those  ages  so  far  behind 
us  that  even  man's  intellect  breaks  down 
in  computing  their  longness,  that  out  of  that 
chaos — out  of  that  ungoverned  chaos  of 
steam  and  cosmic  matter  that  raved  so 
purposelessly  ages  ago,  we  should  have  come 
forth — we  and  our  wonderful  order  of  law 
and  beauty  and  hope  and  increasing  power 
of  man  ?  Tell  me,  friends,  where  are 
the  miracles  of  any  earthly  revelation 
when  placed  in  comparison  with  a  world- 
miracle  so  stupendous  as  this?  When 
knowledge  has  said  its  last  word,  and 
reverently  or  grumblingly  cries  amen  to 
instinct  and  religion,  day  may  not  yet  have 
dawned;  but  we  see  at  least  a  rose  of  dawn 
upon  the  gray  sea:  and  on  earth,  once  with- 
out form  and  void,  where  undisturbed 
darkness  reigned,  there  is  at  least  a  promise 
of  the  dawning  of  a  day  without  clouds. 
But  who  could  have  dared  to  dream  it, 
ages  ago?     Ah,  who  could  have  dared  still 


276  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

to  hold  to  the  dream,  ages  and  ages  after? 
I  believe  that  the  time  will  soon  come  when 
men  will  see  that  miracle  is  not  the  breaking 
of  God's  law,  but  the  expression  and  fulfil- 
ment of  that  law.  //  we  came  from  chaos — 
what  may  not  come  from  us? 

Briefly,  then,  I  have  tried  to  point  out  to 
you  what  the  results  of  knowledge  are. 
We  are  assured  soberly  to-day  that  the 
wildest  dreamer  could  never  have  con- 
ceived of  transformations  so  impossible  as 
those  which  our  world  cradle  hath  under- 
gone in  order  to  make  us  possible.  And  so 
faith  dares  to  hope  it  shall  so  be  again. 
Man  has  a  right  to  hope,  man  has  an  au- 
thority to  love.  Man  looks  backward — and, 
though  he  knows  no  golden  age  lies  there; 
and,  looking  forward,  knows  also  that  on 
this  planet  no  golden  age  can  ever  be — by 
these  very  facts  he  is  assured  that,  as  earth's 
chaos  gave  way  to  him,  as  he  more  than 
justifies  that  chaos,  so  the  struggles  and 
pains  which  his  instinct,  his  religion  and 
his  growing  knowledge  call  upon  him 
bravely  to  face,  shall  be  justified;  that 
his  struggles  with  death  for  his  living,  with 
ignorance  for  his  knowing,   with  the  beast 


I 


God's  Image  in  Man  277 

for  his  moral  growing,  with  the  problems 
of  his  relations  to  his  fellows  for  his  social 
growing  shall  have  their  fair  result  at 
last,  for  not  one  particle  of  his  struggle 
shall  be  lost  or  in  vain  ;  and  that 
once  again,  a  yet  higher  and  holier  order 
from  our  present  disorder  shall  be  bom 
and  a  kingdom  established  wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness.  By  the  stupendous  miracle 
of  what  he  is,  he  is  emboldened  to  believe 
in  the  still  vaster  miracle  he  is  to  be. 

Yes,  knowledge  says  Amen  to  man's  in- 
stinct and  religion,  and  faith  ventures  to 
believe  and  to  declare,  that  as  out  of  that 
swirling  chaos  an  order  inconceivably  beau- 
tiful has  come,  a  miracle  inconceivably  great 
has  been  wrought,  so  once  again  out  of 
what  seems  to  us  much  confusion  and  dis- 
integration and  death,  in  the  advancing 
evolution  of  God,  is  to  emerge  a  new  order 
as  much  fairer  than  the  present,  as  the 
present  is  more  beautiful  than  the  past — 
and  the  old  Greek  myth  of  Orpheus  going 
even  into  hell  to  claim  his  bride,  which 
stands  for  an  everlasting  truth,  is  to  have 
its  fulfilment.  None  has  dared  to  think 
why  God  chose    His  bride  from  hell — but 


278  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

out  of  very  hell  God  has  called  the  race,  and 
love  can  lift  them  out. 

So  runs  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  to-day. 
Since  now  we  are  the  sons  of  God,  imagina- 
tion itself  is  bankrupt  in  dreaming  of  what 
we  shall  be. 

"Prophetic  Hope,  thy  fine  discourse 
Foretold  not  half  life's  good  to  me; 
Thy  painter,  Fancy,  hath  not  force 
To  show  how  sweet  it  is  to  be  ! 
Thy  witching  dream 
And  pictured  scheme 
To  match  the  fact  still  want  the  power; 
Thy  promise   brave 
From  birth  to  grave 
Life's  boon  may  beggar  in  an  hour." 

For  God's  life  is  now  in  us,  and  we  are  little 
Gods,  and  over  us  spread  the  everlasting 
and  eternal  powers,  waiting  to  fill  us  and 
inspire  us,  waiting  to  fit  us  for  new  tasks 
and  soul-satisfied  living,  as  ages  fulfil 
themselves. 


CHRIST  SENT  ME  NOT    TO  BAPTIZE 

"Christ  sent  me  not  to  baptize,  but  to  preach  the 
gospel." — /  Cor.,  i:  ly. 

A  SHARP  distinction  is  drawn  between 
the  highest  and  most  sacred  right  of  the 
Christian  rehgion  and  the  soul  and  essence 
of  that  rehgion  itself.  A  distinction  drawn 
in  the  very  earliest  days  of  the  Church's 
history;  for  it  is  not  now  seriously  disputed 
that  this  letter  was  written  by  Paul  about 
thirty  years  after  Christ's  death.  There  is 
a  distinction,  drawn  between  the  out- 
ward and  necessary  formularies  of  the 
Christian  religion  and  the  spirit  of  that 
religion.  You  must  remember  that  we 
cannot  at  all  properly  estimate  now  the 
importance  in  those  early  days  of  that  rite  of 
baptism.  It  was  literally  the  passing  from 
an  old  into  a  new  state.  It  was  the  sign 
and  evidence  of  the  completest  change  of 
character,  of  surrounding,  of  laws  and  cus- 
toms that  was  possible.  It  was  a  rite 
regarded  not  only  as  advisable  but  abso- 
279 


28o  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

lutely  obligatory.  It  was  a  rite  so  uni- 
versally regarded  as  obligatory  that  then 
and  in  all  succeeding  times  the  Catholic 
Church  has  regarded  baptism,  no  matter 
when  or  how  administered,  if  administered 
in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the 
Holy  Ghost,  as  valid.  Baptism  by  a  lay 
person  is  just  as  valid  as  baptism  by  a 
bishop  or  pope.  I  mention  this  simply  to 
indicate  to  you  the  supreme  importance 
in  which  this  rite  was  held  at  the  time  in 
which  these  words  were  written  for  the 
guidance  of  the  Corinthian  Church. 

St.  Paul  believes  in  the  body,  in- 
sists on  its  order,  enforces  its  discipline, 
strives  for  its  unity;  and  for  that  unity 
sacrifices  his  wishes  and  subordinates  his 
own  opinions,  as  all  must  who  wish  for 
unity  at  all.  But  important  as  he  believes 
this  visible  expression  of  unity  to  be,  high 
as  the  place  he  gives  to  the  Church,  to  the 
body  of  Christ,  there  can  be  no  possible 
argument  with  St.  Paul  as  to  which  of  the 
two  is  the  more  important.  He  is  charged 
with  the  very  life  of  the  Church  itself. 
"Christ  sent  me  not  to  baptize,  but  to 
preach  the  gospel. " 


Christ  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize     281 

What  then  is  the  gospel?  It  is  all  im- 
portant to  know  what  meaning  St.  Paul 
attaches  to  the  word.  There  may  be  many- 
gospels — as  a  matter  of  fact  there  have  been — 
for  good  news  has  come  again  and  again 
to  man  in  his  extremity,  and  all  messages 
delivered  at  all  times  and  by  divers  manners 
from  the  Everlasting  Spirit  to  the  growing 
children  of  men,  have  been  indeed  their 
true,  good  news.  To  say  that  Christianity 
is  the  only  gospel  is  to  speak  ignorantly. 
But  the  Christian  gospel  is  distinctive.  It 
sums  up,  explains  and  completes  for  us 
the  everlasting  gospel  in  which  God,  from 
time  to  time,  by  various  methods  and  ways, 
has  made  plain  to  man  the  truth  about  his 
own  destiny  and  about  his  own  nature. 
The  Christian  gospel  is  the  good  news  which 
Jesus  brings,  and  that  revelation  of  His 
may  be  fairly  described  as  having  for  its 
scope  and  aim  the  good  news  as  to  the 
nature  of  God  and  the  nature  of  man.  It 
is  very  evident  that  on  his  views  of  the 
nature  of  God  and  the  nature  of  man  de- 
pend all  man's  views  as  to  his  duty  and 
responsibility,  rest  all  his  ideas  as  to  his 
nature  and  destiny.     These,   then,   are  the 


282  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

truths  that  are  taught  and  revealed  by 
Jesus  Christ.  Profoundly  they  changed  the 
life  of  the  world;  profoundly  they  continue 
to  change  it. 

Jesus  Christ  presented  the  truth  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  God  and  the  nature 
of  man  in  His  own  person.  His  teachings 
were  His  gospel,  for  they  were  the  explanation 
of  His  person,  of  His  Father,  and  of  man's  re- 
lation both  to  Him  and  to  His  Father.  No 
words  that  I  can  use  will  go  beyond  the  words 
of  Jesus  Christ.  You  remember  He  says: 
"  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father. 
Why  sayest  thou  then,  show  us  the  Father?" 
In  the  person  of  Jesus  not  only  is  truth 
revealed  about  the  nature  of  God,  but  there 
is  a  visible  presentation,  so  far  as  human 
eyes  can  see  it,  of  the  nature  of  God.  And 
so  when  I  ask  myself  that  question,  which 
all  times  and  races  have  propounded — how 
am  I  to  go  to  God — there  comes  the  old 
answer :  "I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  the 
life;  no  man  cometh  to  the  Father  but  by 
me."  And  so  the  way  to  God  is  absolutely 
revealed  to  me  in  a  man,  whose  personality 
is  as  distinct  as  mine  own.  You  may  say 
these  things  are  old  and  trite,  but  I  tell  you 


Christ  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize     283 

the  thought  of  man  is  only  beginning  to  deal 
with  them.  As  we  stand  in  wonder- 
ment before  the  half  revelations  of  our  own 
greatness,  we  are  led  back  again  with  new 
sense  of  their  fulness  to  these  old,  inex- 
haustible truths.  The  conception  of  man's 
approach  to  God  is  not  in  a  book,  is  not  to 
be  found  in  a  Church,  is  not  wrapped  up  in  a 
creed.  No  definitions,  however  valuable, 
are  the  main  guides  here.  Mark  it,  no 
sacraments  even,  however  truly  pronounced 
and  authorized  and  given  by  Jesus  Christ 
Himself,  are  main  channels  here.  "Aye, 
the  study  of  Me,  the  walking  in  Me,  the 
obeying  Me,  the  having  and  possessing  Me — 
I  am  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life ;  no  man 
Cometh  to  the  Father  but  by  Me. " 

Now,  what  is  Christ's  kingdom?  The 
kingdom  of  Jesus  is  the  presentation  in  the 
person  of  one  man,  Jesus  Christ,  of  the 
very  law  and  purpose  of  the  living  God. 
There  are  no  two  laws  in  this  world,  no  two 
sources  of  life.  Jesus  Christ  makes  it  quite 
plain  to  us — "A  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand. "  God's  kingdom  is 
not  divided  against  itself.  Thus  beyond 
possibility   of   misunderstanding   He   states 


2S4  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

His  message,  He  declares  His  aim.  This  is 
the  truth  which  He  has  received  from  His 
Father,  and  has  come  to  declare  to  His 
brethren.  To  accept  this  truth  is  to  accept 
His  person.  To  accept  His  person  is  to 
admit  His  rule,  yield  to  Him  obedience 
of  mind  and  will  and  heart,  own  Him 
king  of  the  soul.  And  all  who  so  obey, 
whether  they  join  His  outward  society  or 
not,  are  subject  to  the  Son  of  Man  who  has 
become  their  king.  This  is  the  sort  of 
kingdom  He  comes  to  set  up.  These  are 
the  simple  laws  on  which  it  rests.  But 
simple  as  they  seem,  these  are  the  very  laws 
on  which  the  whole  universe  rests.  For 
the  universe  is  God's  house  and  cannot  be 
divided  against  itself.  "  His  Father  worketh 
hitherto,  and  He  works." 

This  work  he  describes  under  a  simile  that 
perhaps  more  clearly  expresses  His  views  of 
the  Father,  of  His  Church  and  kingdom 
than  any  other — the  simile  of  sown  and 
growing  seed.  In  this  universe  which  is 
His  Father's  He  sows  this  seed  of  His  truth; 
submitting  it  to  the  law  and  order  of  that 
universe,  as  He  submits  Himself.  "I  am 
the  Truth" — and  so  all  He  is  and  all  He 


Christ  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize     285 

knows  is  yielded  to  the  order  of  the  world. 
To  quote  again  His  simile — it  is  a  corn  seed, 
and  it  grows,  though  you  would  not  think 
it  growing.  Mistaken  by  those  who  hastily 
judge  or  see  no  further  than  they  see.  His 
truth.  His  life,  His  person,  in  seeming  to 
die,  take  new  hold  on  being. 

Now  let  us  look  still  a  little  more  fully  at 
this  gospel  seed.  The  most  confusing  thing, 
the  most  disheartening,  in  man's  struggle 
with  man's  surroundings  and  with  himself 
is  the  ever  present,  seeming  defeat  of  death. 
The  body  of  truth — to  refer  to  Christ's 
simile,  the  casing  of  the  seed  embryo — that 
has  become  so  dear  to  us  because  we  have 
toiled  for  it,  and  with  pain  and  tears  reared 
it  and  reaped  it — this  seed  corn  must  die. 
"  Except  a  grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone."  And 
so  in  the  person  and  teaching  of  Jesus  is 
first  clearly  revealed  to  men  this  light  be- 
yond the  darkness  of  the  grave.  But  His 
disciples  could  not  endure  it;  we  may  not 
wonder  at  this.  They  had  walked  in  His 
light  for  a  brief  season.  They  had  learned 
to  love  and  to  worship.  Must  anything  so 
beautiful,    so    broad,    so    incomparable    as 


286  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

Jesus,  die — die  and  leave  no  follower,  none 
at  all  like  Him?  None  to  fight  for  them, 
love  them,  seek  and  save  them  as  did  He? 
This  be  far  from  Thee,  Lord.  But  Jesus 
had  to  die.  Death  is  not  the  breaking  of 
the  law  of  God;  death  is  iJie  law  of  God. 
There  is  only  one  law  for  the  Lord  and  for 
the  servant.  His  apostles  must  die;  and 
we  can  well  believe  that  a  sense  of  strange 
loneliness  and  disheartenment  lay  heavy  on 
the  soul  of  the  early  Church,  when  she  knew 
that  the  last  of  those  whose  eyes  had  seen 
and  whose  very  hands  had  handled  the 
Word  of  Life  must  pass  from  her  away. 
They  must  die  and  leave  no  successors 
for  no  Pauls  or  Johns  came  after  them; 
and  we  wonder  still  at  the  gap  they  left 
behind.  But  the  fact  remains;  for  this  is 
the  law  of  the  seed's  growth.  Dying,  it 
is  replaced  by  a  poorer  thing  than  itself; 
or  so  it  seems  at  first.  After  the  greater 
there  follow  the  lesser  men. 

The  Master  has  died,  and  His  apostles. 
But  the  gospel  is  not  dead ;  "  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  a  seed  which  a  man  sowed  in 
his  field;  it  groweth  he  knoweth  not  how, 
first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full 


Cbrist  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize     287 

com  in  the  ear. "  But  as  the  Master  passed 
from  one  phase  of  Hfe  into  another,  and 
so  departed  from  our  ken;  as  the  apostles 
went  and  left  none  so  great  to  succeed;  so 
the  forms  under  which  that  gospel  which 
they  loved  and  proclaimed  is  delivered 
passes  often  with  the  deliverers.  For  it  is 
not  only  true  of  the  messengers,  but  Jesus 
teaches  us  true  of  the  truth  itself,  that 
"  except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground 
and  die,  it  abideth  alone." 

i^s  we  look  back  on  the  ages  that  have 
preceded  us,  again  and  again  that  seed 
seemed  to  die  past  all  power  of  resurrection. 
Darkness,  misery,  debauchery  and  crime  of 
those  bloody  and  confused  times,  seemed 
to  overwhelm  it  and  drag  it  down.  Its 
enemies  are  mighty  and  evil;  its  champions 
are  often  far  worse;  its  bitterest  foes  those 
of  its  own  household.  But  it  cannot  die, 
for  it  carries  within  it  the  extraordinary 
potentiality  of  the  truth  itself.  You  can 
no  more  hinder  its  springing  up  in  new  vigour 
and  taking  new  form,  rounding  itself  into 
new  beauty  and  completeness,  than  you 
could  have  prevented,  millions  of  years  ago, 
that  whirling  mist-storm,  fiery,  wildly  lashed 


2SS  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

to  i-jiT/ — £  cyclone  of  earth-stuff  cast  forth 
from  some  mightA*  sun  crater — orbing  itself 
at  last  after  changes  that  are  bewildering 
into  a  new  planet,  to  spin  for  long  ages 
through  realms  of  space  and  work  out  from 
boj-hood  to  manhood  its  fateful  destiny. 
Who  could  foresee  in  the  fierce  eruptions 
of  a  glowing  universe  the  myster}'  and 
beauty  of  a  human  world  r  "^Tio  would 
have  dared  to  say  that  out  of  that  wild, 
whirling  chaos  of  earth  matter,  millions 
of  ages  hence  a  round  and  beautiful  earth 
would  roll,  with  its  greenery,  its  beauty, 
its  living  things,  and  all  the  wonders  of  life  ? 
Yet  all  you  are,  all  you  dream  of  be- 
ing, was  contained  in  that  whirling  vortex 
of  earth-stuff,  ages  ago — the  ver}-  seed  of 
God.  And  all  the  powers  of  the  universe 
were  bent  on  at  last  making  the  cyclone 
into  a  planet,  and  at  last  moulding  the 
planet  into  a  garden,  and  at  last  leading 
out  of  the  beds  of  the  garden  God's  sprouts 
and  seeds  of  men  and  women.  But  all  that 
makes  up  life  lay  hidden,  awaiting  its 
development,  in  the  fier\-  spume  cast  off 
by  some  convulsed  sun.     And  what  works 


Christ  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize    289 

the  miracle?  The  law  of  life  in  the  atom. 
Yet  every  single  stage  in  this  extraordinary 
development  has  been  a  death.  No  one 
single  advance  of  life  without  death,  any- 
where, anywhere.  My  friends,  the  things 
that  men  believe  just  as  truly  die  as  the  men 
that  believe  them. 

So  with  the  gospel  truth  which  the  Savioiir 
brought.  Each  generation  brings  to  it 
change,  each  change  seems  a  death,  and  is 
indeed  a  death  of  the  outer  part,  and  death 
is  ever  greeted  with  trepidation;  man  being 
so  slow  to  learn  that  it  is  the  necessary 
precursor  of  change.  There  can  be  no  two 
laws,  one  for  the  church  and  the  gospel, 
and  one  for  the  universe — for  the  house  of  the 
Father  is  not  divided  against  itself.  Again 
and  again,  great  and  good  men  have  taught 
that  there  are  two  sorts  of  law,  but  we  know 
them  to  be  wrong.  We  may  wish  it,  we 
may  mourn  for  it;  but  it  cannot  be.  And 
the  dearest  truths  we  hold,  as  in  the  simpler 
seeds  we  sow — neither  one  nor  the  other 
can  grow  and  be  its  fullest,  best  self,  except 
as  it  submit  itself  again  and  again  to  the 
seeming  defeat  of  death.     Under  this   im- 


290  The    Reasonableness    of   Faith 

press  of  death  it  develops  and  re-develops. 
In  the  unscientific  language  to  be  understood 
of  all  simple  folks  Jesus  taught  this  when 
He  said:  "It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go 
away;  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter 
cannot  come  to  you;  but  if  I  depart  I  will 
send  him  unto  you. "  The  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  the  assurance  to  the  Church 
of  the  continual  presence  and  changeless 
energy  of  the  life  of  Christ. 

So  again  I  say,  What  is  the  gospel  ?  Truth 
about  the  nature  of  man  and  the  nature  of 
God,  as  Jesus  revealed  both.  First  the 
tiny,  yellow  seed;  then  the  morsel  of  dark 
decay  with  white  tendrils  growing  beneath 
it;  then  the  upspringing  shaft  of  greenness, 
weak  and  uncertain  of  itself;  then  the  tall, 
fair  stalk  waving  in  the  light  and  air;  and, 
lastly,  the  ripened  and  completed  grain 
itself.  That  is  the  seed,  and  it  is  Jesus' 
teaching  about  His  kingdom.  The  seed  dies 
that  it  may  live.  This  was  how  He  sowed, 
this  was  what  He  saw,  this  is  what  we  are 
here  to  work  for  and  to  be.  This  is  His 
gospel,  the  gospel  of  His  teaching  and  His 
person.     Our  views  of  the  nature  of  God 


Christ  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize     291 

and  the  nature  of  man  have  passed  and  are 
passing,  again  and  again,  through  every  one 
of  these  stages,  from  the  single  seed  com 
cast  into  the  ground,  to  the  great  harvest 
of  all  nations  and  peoples  and  kindreds 
and  tongues,  to  gladden  at  last  the  heart  of 
God  and  fill  to  the  full  the  destiny  of  man. 

But,  men  and  brethren,  how  shall  we 
proclaim  this  gospel  ?  Talk  it,  build  churches 
or  cathedrals,  publish  Bibles  and  prayer- 
books,  repeat  creeds  and  join  in  litanies? 
Ah !  the  French  bishop  said  the  truth  when 
he  said:  "It  is  infinitely  easy  to  say  our 
prayers ;  it  is  infinitely  hard  to  do  our  duty.  " 
We  cannot  satisfy  the  hungers  of  to-day 
with  the  com  seeds  of  the  past;  we  can 
only  satisfy  them  with  the  harvests  which 
we  have  sown  and  reaped  from  the  per- 
petual sowing  and  gardening  of  those  com 
seeds.  The  com  of  past  harvests  cannot 
satisfy  present  hungers.  Duty  done,  ser- 
vice given,  life  surrendered,  the  carrying 
into  a  living  confession  of  the  splendid 
truths  Jesus  taught  us,  the  high  revelation 
of  the  nature  of  man  in  our  own  lives,  in- 
spiring belief  in  the  nature  of  God,  justifying 


292  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

and  rewarding  our  lives — these  are  what 
the  world  wants.  This  is  the  gospel  har- 
vest of  Christ's  sowing  which  can  feed  its 
hunger  and  satisfy  its  soul.  It  will  avail  us 
little  to  bow  before  the  forms  of  the  past, 
if  we  are  not  ourselves  living  in  the  power 
of  its  spirit.  I  may  be  possessed  of  the 
very  forms  that  inspired  lips  once  drew; 
I  may  know  the  very  words  that  once  fell 
from  the  dear  lips  of  the  Christ — yet  having 
the  one  and  knowing  the  other,  what  am  I 
the  better  for  these  if  His  loving  spirit  does 
not  rule  my  life  and  move  me  mightily  to 
achieve  His  ends  and  obey  His  laws? 

Life,  not  venerable  death,  we  want — living 
men  for  living  issues.  Men  have  borne  into 
battle  the  relics  of  the  great  dead;  but  it 
was  that  they  might  inspire  with  the  spirit 
of  the  past  the  arms  of  the  present.  You 
remember  when  Douglas  and  his  little  band 
of  Scotch  crusader  knights  were  beset  by 
the  flower  of  Moorish  cavalry,  he  hurled 
Robert  Bruce' s  heart  which  he  earned 
round  his  neck  far  into  the  fight,  and  then 
followed  it  to  die.  Fine  and  true,  that ! 
but  what  cheered  him  on  his  last  desperate 


Christ  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize     293 

charge?  It  was  not  the  dusty  heart  of 
the  dead  hero  of  Bannockburn,  but  the 
spirit  of  Bruce  that  had  found  a  lodgment 
in  his  very  soul. 

And  to-day,  thank  God,  we  can  tell 
sometimes  the  same  splendid  story.  It 
is  the  spirit  of  present  heroes,  not  the  relics 
of  past  heroes  that  win  the  battles;  out- 
lining the  destinies  of  nations  and  move- 
ments, and  making  men  still  proud  that 
they  are  men.  Only  a  few  weeks  ago,  in  the 
heart  of  what  is  called  the  Dark  Continent 
a  little  band  of  thirty-six  African  troopers 
found  themselves  suddenly  hemmed  in  by 
three  thousand  of  a  brave,  but  pitiless  foe ;  cut 
off  from  all  hope  of  succour,  home,  love,  life ; 
the  only  barrier  they  could  present,  in  their 
last  stand,  their  dead  horses.  None  sur- 
vived the  short,  bitter  fight;  mothers  and 
friends  at  home  did  not  know  how  they  died 
till  one  of  their  own  foes  told  the  story ;  and 
what  was  the  story?  Thank  God,  again 
and  again,  it  is  the  story  of  man's  endurance 
and  of  a  courage  which  at  least  is  part  of 
the  spirit  of  complete  manhood  revealed  in 
Jesus   Christ.     When   the   last   cartridge   is 


2  94  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

spent  and  their  strength  spent,  too,  what 
do  they  do?  The  very  wounded  and  dying 
struggle  to  their  feet,  and  while  the  winning 
foe  for  a  brief  moment  gives  pause,  they 
raise  their  shot-riddled  hats  and  try  to  sing 
with  dying  breath — "God  save  the  Queen." 
What  does  it  mean  ?  It  means  that  the 
spirit  that  has  always  risen  in  darkest 
hours  of  storm  and  trial,  conquering  diffi- 
culty, laughing  at  odds,  bidding  defiance  to 
death,  is  not  a  spirit  given  to  the  few  great 
leaders  of  a  great  people  only;  but  given  to 
thirty-six  unknown  African  troopers,  plain 
men,  dying  in  an  obscure  war.  It  means 
that  God  still  lives  His  own  supreme  life 
even  in  these  brief  lives  of  ours,  closed  in 
for  a  short  day  with  clay.  The  spirit  of  a 
splendid  courage  which  is  at  least  in  part 
the  spirit  of  the  Son  of  Man,  lies  hidden,  and 
often  forgotten,  in  hearts  and  souls  of 
common  men — the  spirit  of  goodness  and  of 
God;  the  spirit  that  endures  and  hopes  and 
dares,  giving  its  life  to  do  life's  duty;  far, 
far  removed  in  its  quality  from  that  su- 
preme goodness  and  courage  combined  which 
spake  in  Him  and  lived  in  Him  as  never 
man  spake  or  lived;  but  still  through  all 


Christ  Sent  Me  not  to  Baptize    295 

its  changes  claimed  as  akin  to  His  own 
nature,  as  witness  to,  and  evidence  of,  man's 
relationship  to  God. 

"For  the   dear  Christ  dwells  not  afar, 
The  King  of  some  remoter  star, 
Listening  at  times  with  flattered  ear 
To  homage  drawn  from  human  fear; 
But  here  among  the  weak  and  blind, 
The  torn  and  suffering  of  mankind, 
In  works  we  do,  in  words  we  say, 
Life  of  our  life.  He  lives  to-day. " 

April,  1894. 


WHAT    MANNER    OF    MAN    IS   THIS? 

"  What  manner  of  man  is  this  !  that  even  the  winds 
and  the  sea  obey  him." — Luke,  viii:  25. 

God  speaking  not  only  to  man  but  in  man 
— this  is  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  A 
revelation  of  the  divine  in  man — this  is 
the  reason  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  inexhaustible.  From  it  each  generation 
of  men  must  draw  a  new  light  and  inspira- 
tion. Prophecy  shall  cease,  tongues  shall 
fail.  The  greatest  messengers  and  greatest 
messages  are  sometimes  forgotten.  But  if 
I  am  sure  that  God  lives  in  man,  then  in 
every  unfolding  of  the  wonderful  life  of  our 
race,  in  every  single  department  of  its  activ- 
ity, I  am  contemplating  the  real  revelation 
of  the  very  life  of  God  Himself.  This  is  a 
profound,  a  soul-inspiring  thought. 

In  the  teachings  and  person  of  Jesus, 
God  has  given  us  an  assurance  that 
this  is  true — not  only  that  He  did  speak 
to  man,  but  that  He  does  live  and  will  live 
in  man  to  the  end  of  the  ages.  And  when 
we  come  to  be  with  Jesus,  to  study  Him, 
297 


298  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

to  understand  Him  a  little,  we  find  united 
in  His  person  these  two  great  verities.  He 
is  united  to  the  Father  as  none  other  could 
be.  He  is  one  with  God,  sent  by  His  Father, 
He  knows  His  Father,  does  His  Father's 
will,  speaks  His  Father's  words.  "  He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father."  And 
on  the  other  hand,  He  Himself  searches  all 
nature  to  find  similes  that  should  adequately 
explain  the  inseparableness  of  His  relation 
to  us.  He  is  the  root  of  our  life  tree — we  its 
branches.  He  is  the  elder  brother,  and  we 
the  younger  brethren.  Aye,  when  He 
chooses  deliberately  His  own  name,  it  is 
"Son  of  Man." 

It  is  absolutely  essential  for  us  to 
remember  this  unity  of  Jesus  with  the 
Father,  for  from  it  springs  His  authority  to 
make  the  tremendous  declarations  He  does. 
It  is  equally  necessary  for  us  to  remember 
His  unity  with  us,  for  by  this  actual  one- 
ness alone  are  these  vast  commands  of  His 
revealed  as  possible,  as  binding.  In  other 
words,  the  teachings  of  His  person  must 
supplement  those  of  His  doctrine.  He  in- 
tended them  to  go  together,  and  we  must 
never  separate  them. 


What  Manner  of  Man  Is  This?     299 

The  reason  for  this  is  very  plain  if  you 
will  consider  it  a  little.  The  moral  height 
of  His  moral  teachings  would  discourage 
us,  they  are  so  infinitely  beyond  our 
present  attainment.  They  lift  us  into  a 
region  too  high  for  human  breathing  almost. 
They  would  leave  us  in  despondency  were 
it  not  for  the  intimacy  of  His  person.  He 
who  sees  these  awful  things,  who  sums  up 
His  commands  for  us  in:  "Be  ye  therefore 
perfect  as  your  Father  which  is  in  Heaven  is 
perfect,"  is  the  same  Who  walks  beside  us  in 
the  rough  road,  shares  our  thirst,  our  himger 
and  our  pain,  is  bom  of  woman,  is  most 
truly  human  of  all  the  sons  of  men. 

Teaching  and  personality  must  go  hand 
in  hand.  Last  Sunday  we  glanced  at 
His  teaching.  Reverently  this  morning  let 
us  a  little  regard  His  person.  The  note  sus- 
tained and  dominant  here  is  that  One  was 
born  on  earth  and  yet  was  to  be  full  of  God. 
Here  is  a  human  life  really  human,  lacking 
no  single  part  or  passion  of  manhood — ever 
mark  that — yet  purely  pervious  to  God, 

Pause  with  me  here  a  moment.  It  is  not 
true  that  the  measure  of  any  living  thing's 
perviousness   is   the   best   possible   measure 


300  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

of  its  advance  in  the  scale  of  being.  All 
life  stands  veiled  before  the  infinite  life. 
And  life  may  be  spoken  as  of  lowly  or  of 
high  order  in  proportion  to  the  thickness 
of  the  veil  that  hangs  between  it  and  the 
infinite  life. 

Here  are  creatures  scarcely  alive.  Their 
life  is  evident  only  to  patient  study.  They 
seem  closely  allied  to  the  vegetable  world. 
They  have  little  use  for  life  and  none  for  air. 
Why?  They  are  veiled  from  the  sun  and 
from  the  air  by  the  well-nigh  impenetrable 
veil  of  twenty  thousand  feet  of  sunless  sea. 
The  depths  of  the  ocean  veil  them  from  the 
sun. 

Rise  up  ages  and  ages  in  the  scale  of  life, 
and  here  you  find  the  locust  burrowing  in 
the  wet,  cold  covering  of  the  ground  till 
many  inches  of  impervious  soil  cut  it  off 
from  the  light  and  the  day.  Before  it  has 
spread  its  wings,  and  sung  its  summer  song, 
the  frost  of  many  a  winter  and  the  rains  of 
many  a  spring,  and  the  persuasive  warmth 
of  many  a  summer  day  must  search  for  it  in 
the  cold  dank  soil.  For  its  veil,  too,  is 
thick  and  impervious. 

Rise  a  little  higher,  and  you  look  with  me 


What  Manner  of  Man  Is  This?    301 

on  the  gauzy  veil  woven  of  the  filmy  thread 
which  the  silkworm  spins  out  of  the  rich 
greenery  of  the  leaf  on  which  it  feeds. 
And  so  it  is  all  through  Creation.  Some 
veils  are  thick,  and,  we  have  thought,  im- 
penetrable, like  the  profound  gulf  of  the 
sea.  And  some  are  coarse  and  impervious 
like  the  cold  dank  soil  of  earth.  And  some 
are  gauzy  coverings  that  seem  almost  to  in- 
vite the  warmth  and  light  of  the  sun.  And 
so  looking  at  life  merely  in  this  illustrative 
way,  we  think  the  thickest  veiling  lies  on 
lower  orders,  thinner  on  higher  orders,  and, 
thinnest  of  all,  on  the  order  of  man.  As 
we  rise,  there  is  less  and  less  lethargy  and 
more  and  more  light. 

Now,  we  Christians  believe  that  back  of 
all  veiling,  penetrating  His  veils — for  He 
Himself  has  hung  them — God  our  Father 
lives — above  all,  through  all,  in  all,  over  all 
from  the  beginning;  that  all  creation  is  but 
the  burying  away  of  life.  Whether  it  be 
in  the  ravines  of  the  great  sea,  or  the  gauzy 
veiling  of  the  silkworm,  or  the  mysteriously 
sensitive  matter  of  the  brain,  all  creation  is 
but  a  veiling  of  life  from  God;  and  that  in 
the  past  so  in  the  present  and  in  the  future, 


302  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

whether  it  be  insect  life  struggling  towards 
the  sunlit  water,  or  monkeydom  struggling 
towards  manhood,  or  manhood  stretching 
itself  yearningly  towards  Godhood,  all  bury- 
ing of  life,  as  it  were,  is  a  burying  that  may 
be  unburied — a  sowing  of  life  that  from 
the  sowing  life  may  spring,  the  veiling  of 
the  seed,  that  there  may  be  the  im veiling 
of  the  flower,  that  the  God  in  whom  all 
things  live  and  move  and  have  their  being, 
may,  in  calling  His  creatures  forth  to  Himself 
teach  them  to  win  some  special  quality,  gain 
some  certain  value  known  only  to  Him, 
the  inevitable  struggle  which  life  must  make 
to  pierce  its  veil  and  rise  in  response  to  the 
mysterious  voice  that  calls  it  forth  to  the 
joy  of  its  own  individual  resurrection.  So 
we  sing: 

"God  of  the  granite  and  the  rose, 

Soul  of  the  sparrow  and  the  bee, 
The  mighty  tide  of  being  rolls, 

Through  countless  channels,  Lord,  from  thee. 
It  springs  to  life  in  grass  and  flowers, 

Through  every  grade  of  being  runs, 
While  from  Creation's  utmost  towers, 

Its  glory  streams  in  stars  and  suns. " 

These  are  more  than  dreams.  They  are 
hopes  founded  not  only  on  growing  knowl- 
edge  and   widening   experience,    but   on   a 


What  Manner  of  Man  Is  This?    303 

deeper  understanding  of  the  universal  long- 
ings and  purposes  of  mankind.  But  oh, 
my  soul's  athirst  for  God  !  Not  merely  for 
the  God  of  theory  or  even  hope,  not  even 
as  the  poet's  song  seeks  to  praise  Him,  nor 
the  grave  man's  pondering  would  vision 
Him  forth,  but  here  as  the  Son  of  Mary  I 
honour  Him.  I  want  Him  as  a  hand,  a 
guide,  a  man.  Yes,  a  guide  more  than  a 
teacher.  For  if  He  gave  me  only  these 
teachings  of  His,  they  so  utterly  transcend 
me  that  they  cast  me  down.  I  gasp  in  His 
higher  air.  I  must  draw  near  to  His  person 
and  I  must  find  in  His  person  the  equiva- 
lent for  His  teaching. 

Ah,  we  are  such  materialists  to-day.  Just 
because  we  must  have  a  Jesus  with  a  person 
that  no  more  outrages  our  faith,  that  no  more 
outrages  our  reason  than  His  teachings  do, 
just  because  so  very  much  depends  upon 
His  person,  we  prepare  ourselves  before- 
hand with  all  sorts  of  doubts  and  fears  as 
we  approach  the  contemplation  of  it.  We 
accept  almost  thoughtlessly  the  transcen- 
dence of  His  teachings  because  they  are  not 
half  real  enough  to  us.  But  when  we  come 
to    the    transcendence    of    His    person,    we 


304  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

halt  fearfully,  and  draw  back.  Men  begin 
to  shake  their  heads.  Now  they  say: 
"You  are  in  the  unreal  land  of  faith  and 
myth.  Beware  !  He  was  so  great  that  all 
the  reverent  fancy  of  the  early  time  has 
played  round  His  person,  misconceived 
and  misdrawn  it. " 

I  am  aware  of  all  this.  I  am  perfectly 
aware  that  it  is  impossible  to  accept  without 
question  the  conclusions  of  a  tradition 
however  reverent.  I  am  fully  aware  that 
a  reasonable  man  cannot  to-day  be  asked 
to  bow  before  mere  authority.  I  am  no 
believer  in  such  authority  myself.  Full 
well  I  know  that  on  the  smallest  of  founda- 
tions authority  has  too  often  built  the 
vastest  of  superstructures  reversing  the 
pyramid  of  life.  In  building,  the  apex 
takes  the  place  of  the  foundation.  Full 
well  I  know  that  monstrous  superstructures 
have  been  reared  under  the  reverent  super- 
intendency  of  tradition  and  authority. 

By  all  means  let  us  give  full  weight  to  all 
such  considerations.  I  try  to  do  so.  I  do 
not  find  myself  able  to  believe  all  the  miracles 
ascribed  to  Jesus  in  the  Gospels.  But  I  am 
more  than   ever  convinced  that  at  certain 


What  Manner  of  Man  Is  This?     305 

periods  of  His  life,  Jesus  was  given  to  work 
miracles  in  order  to  commend  His  message 
and  win  for  His  message  a  reverent  atten- 
tion. And  far  from  believing  such  miracles 
to  be  impossible,  I  think  it  more  than  likely 
that  in  the  time  to  come,  miracles  will  not 
offer  any  real  difficulty  to  the  thoughtful 
man,  but  our  children  or  children's  children 
may  yet  see  men  on  the  earth  who  are  good 
enough  and  great  enough  to  work  them. 

For  I  am  sure  of  this — that  miracles  as 
Jesus  wrought  them  were  altogether  the 
most  beautiful  and  natural  things  possible. 
To  think  of  them  as  breaks  in  God's  law  is 
illogical  and  absurd.  To  think  of  them  as 
natural  operations  wrought  by  higher  good- 
ness and  higher  power  working  in  com- 
pletest  harmony  with  God's  will,  is  reason- 
ableness itself. 

When  Jesus  stood  before  men,  there  stood 
One  Whom  they  knew  not — One  fully 
pervious  to  light,  knowledge,  and  power  of 
God,  a  will  at  one  with  His  Father's,  a 
hand  clasped  in  His  Father's  hand.  Well 
might  they  cry,  "What  manner  of  man  is 
this  that  even  the  winds  and  the  sea  obey 
Him?"    The  rude  forces  of  earth  shaping 


3o6  The    Reasonableness    of    Faitk 

matter  after  the  eternal  will,  plastic  in  the 
hands  of  absolute  God.  For  God  is  above 
all.  His  greatness  flows  around  our  in- 
completeness, His  goodness  round  our  frail- 
ties, always  seeking  opportunities  to  express 
itself  and  flow  forth.  Once  upon  a  time 
there  were  some  who  believed  that  the 
larger  and  colder  volume  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea  was  higher  than  the  Red  Sea. 
And  travellers  who  ventured  far  said  that 
beyond  the  Mediterranean  Sea  there  lay 
a  vaster  and  higher  sea  still.  Hence  arose 
the  fancy  that  if  an  opening  were  made 
through  the  sandy  spit  of  Suez,  the  waiting 
Mediterranean  would  pour  down  the  heated 
channel  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  the  volume  of 
the  ocean  beyond  would  fill  up  all  loss. 

Now,  our  poor  life  channels  are  tortuous, 
weed-grown  things  and  choked.  Here  and 
there  a  little  divinity  trickles  through,  but 
in  Jesus  the  channels  of  life  lay  open  to  the 
divine  flood. 

God  ruled  through  Him.  God  filled  Him. 
He  did  not  do  His  own  will,  work  His  own 
work,  or  speak  His  own  word.  And  the 
miracles  of  Jesus  amounted  to  just  this — 
that    when    a    man    is    supremely    good, 


What  Manner  of  Man  Is  This?    307 

is  full  of  God,  matter  is  plastic  to  him. 
He  rules,  and  all  things  obey,  for  what  is 
God's  whole  order  of  rule  but  a  giving  to 
each  range  of  life  a  little  bit  of  life  to  rule, 
increasing  its  little  kingdom  as  it  has  won  the 
capacity  to  govern  it. 

Here  is  a  clover  plant.  It  must  have  its 
king,  and  the  king  lives  only  an  hour  or  two. 
It  is  but  an  insect;  but  for  that  insect's 
coming  and  going,  the  clover-patch  would 
fade  and  die.  The  life  of  the  clover-patch 
and  all  its  beauty  and  fertility,  its  wafting 
odour  to  the  breeze,  its  ministry  to  the 
comfort  of  man,  depends  upon  the  successful 
reign  of  the  insect  of  a  day. 

Go  higher  with  me.  It  is  ever  the  same 
story.  The  bird  will  rule  its  bush,  and  its 
life  in  that  bush  largely  determines  that 
bush's  growth.  And  the  monkey  will  rule  a 
grove,  and  the  savage  will  rule  a  tribe,  and 
the  man  will  rule  himself  or  a  race.  And 
Jesus  will  cry:  "Could  not  I  now  call  to 
my  Father  and  He  would  give  me  more  than 
ten  legions  of  angels.  But  how  then  could 
Scripture  be  fulfilled?" 

"Ah,  what  manner  of  man  is  this!  For 
even  the  winds  and  the  sea  obey  him." 


3o8  The    Reasonableness    of    Faith 

We  are  such  materialists,  my  friends. 
The  mud  on  our  shoes  has  so  bemired  the 
very  eyes  of  our  souls,  that  we  halt  and  pause 
at  anything  that  seems  to  promise  us  con- 
trol of  the  material  that  wraps  us  in. 

If  we  that  merely  control  could  see  more 
clearly,  should  we  not  regard  with  greater 
reverence,  should  we  not  yield  a  more  awe- 
struck admiration  to  the  power  availing 
somewhat  to  change  and  uplift  the  character 
of  one  child,  than  that  magic  touch  of 
miracle  that  proves  its  control  over  matter  ? 

For  which  is  greater — the  veiling  of  the 
soul,  or  the  soul  itself?  "What  manner  of 
man  is  this?"  A  man  after  God's  own 
heart,  a  real  man,  a  man  who  at  last  possesses 
that  abundant  life  which  God  intends  for 
His  children,  Jesus  the  Ruler — for  He  is  fit 
to  rule  !  Ah,  how  great  and  simple  it  all  is ! 
How  it  answers  to  our  deepest  and  our  best 
longings  !  We,  striving  for  our  little  reign 
and  agonizing  to  establish  our  little  rule, 
and  moaning  over  our  constant  incapacity ! 
How 

"He  stands  beside  us  like  our  youth,  transforms 
for  us  the  real  to  the  dream,  clothing  the  palpable  and 
the  familiar  with  golden  exhalations  of  the  dawn" — 


What  Manner  of  Man  Is  This?     309 

the  Man,  the  Son  of  Mary,  absolutely  per- 
vious to  God,  the  Son  to  Whom  the  Father 
at  last  can  say  confidingly:  "Thou  art  ever 
with  Me,  and  all  that  I  have  is  Thine. " 

So  runs  human  history.  At  first  we  are 
boys  getting  our  ten  cents  a  week.  Then 
we  grow  a  little  older  and  our  father  makes 
it  fifty.  Then  we  come  to  the  borderland 
of  man's  estate,  and  we  have  our  allowance, 
helping  us  to  the  responsibilities  to  come. 
Then  years  pass,  and  we  are  taken  into 
minor  partnership,  begin  to  understand  the 
plans,  begin  to  catch  something  of  the  pur- 
poses of  the  Master,  our  Father.  And  yet 
again  years  pass,  and  all  those  plans  and 
purposes  become  to  us  less  strange  and  dim. 
And  we  think  and  hope,  yes,  and  believe, 
that  in  His  infinite  mercy  the  time  shall  yet 
be,  when  He  shall  explain  to  us,  even  as  a 
father  does  to  his  boy,  that  the  treasures  of 
His  kingdom,  the  resources  of  Creation 
itself,  are  ours  in  their  length  and  their 
breadth,  to  know  and  to  spend,  just  so  far 
as  by  His  grace  we  have  made  ourselves  fit 
to  be  fellow-workers  with  the  Father — the 
God  who  made,  fills,  and  sustains  all  things. 


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Hl3r     ness_of_faith_ 


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